Well, Kaboom! It Changes Colors!

We've had housekeepers off and on through the years, but now we have entered the season of College Tuition.  Right now, our housekeeper is me.  There is no chore chart directing little boy minions to scurry around with scrub buckets.  Pity.  Actually, while I would love to have someone pop in once a week to set my world straight and leave it smelling like Mr. Clean, I don't mind cleaning very occasionally.  I must admit, however, that my standards of clean dropped to an all time low when I became the mother of 3 boys.  In my opinion, Swiffers and Clorox Wet Wipes are to my kitchen as medical autoclaves are to operating rooms.  

I was in a dither earlier a couple of weeks ago with many things hanging over my cut-n-colored hair.  Responsibility was pulling me in many directions stretching me tight like a 3rd trimester pregnant belly.  My sweet husband listened to my fretting and then said one of the sweetest things he's ever said to me:  "I think that the bathrooms are clean enough already."  

I basked in his love for a minute before trudging into the laundry room to gather up my cleaning supplies for the battle ahead.  Ugh. Then, I opened the cabinet door and got all excited when I spied with my little eye a new cleaning product.  I simply adore new products - miracle toilet cleaners, new and improved dryer sheets, bound-and-determined-to-clean detergents.  There sitting on the shelf was my reason to smile - a new "toy!"

I don't know when I picked up this new Kaboom, but I would guess that it was on one of my "amblin'" shopping adventures.  The kind where I'm just kind of wandering through Walmart browsing through the seasonal stuff and wandering the grocery aisles looking at new brands of snack foods.  I know what caught my eye on this little honey:

CHANGES COLOR WHEN CLEAN!

Just think of the implications of those words!  They loudly sang "fun!" to the right side of my brain and calmly stated "practical" to my left hemisphere.  Just think!  A housewife simply sprays a coat of pretty blue foam onto a thick, filmy bathtub ring and then sits back on her heels reading Better Homes and Gardens while the foam does the work!  This in itself is not a new concept...the "we-work-hard-so-you-don't-have-toooooooooooo" business model has been out there for years.  Staring at the can of Kaboom I realized that I actually didn't BELIEVE my Scrubbing Bubble Buddies because there was no color-changing magic of "proof."  Add a simple color change-ability, and you can sell me every single Ron Popeil gadget on the planet!

I simply danced to the boys' bathroom carrying my bucket o' cleaners filled with Mr. Clean, Barkeeper's Friend, Comet, Tilex Soap Scum Remover, Lemon Pledge, Scrub Free with Oxy Foaming Action, Kaboom Spray Cleaner with the power of Oxyclean Stain Fighters, Sprayway Glass Cleaner, Clorox Toilet Bowl Cleaner with BLEACH, rubber gloves, a plastic Carino's iced tea go-cup for rinsing the tub, a Magic Eraser, and various sizes and colors of sponges (pink = potty) in one hand and the COLOR-CHANGING KABOOM FOAM-TASTIC WITH THE POWER OF OXI CLEAN STAIN FIGHTER in the other.

The boys' bathroom is a great place to test new cleaning products.  I always tell my newly purchased cleansing agents, "If you can make it there, you'll make it ANYWHERE."  I cleared off Head and Shoulders and Axe Body Wash for Men from the sides of the tub.  Then, I began to paint the tub with a thick coat of blue foam.  The experience was so awesome that I realized that I might soon be singing some special little song about the happiness of "blue foaming."  For the first foaming, I made do with this little ditty:

Humming to myself, I moved from the tub to the toilet to begin another foam masterpiece.  Every few seconds, I peered into the tub to see what Mr. Foam-tastic had goin' on.  Sure enough.  He was fading to white!  When the last tiny foam bubble declared that it had conquered its assigned bit of the bathtub ring, I grabbed my Carino's iced tea go-cup and got to rinsing.  Rinse-rinse-rinse.  Then, I ran an ungloved finger across the bathtub ring zone.  Hmm.  Not quite clean.

Smitten by the creativity involved in blue foaming, I decided to give the tub another coat of blue goodness.  Once the blue had faded, I used a wet sponge to wipe down the inside of the tub.  Success!!  Beautiful white, shiny cleanness!  Hurray!!

Moving from tubs to potties to sink with my graffiti-in-a-can, I began to wonder about what those little color-changing foam bubbles were doing to make it all happen.  I squinted my eyes and envisioned my own little robot can of foamy cleaning.

The Cleaning of the Bathrooms dreaded drudgery flew by.  I thought of how I need to send some cans of...

...to Bryce and Reed before we go to visit them in Waco in October.  They will probably need 4 cans since they have 2 bathrooms that probably haven't been "color-changed" this semester.

Ahhhhh, housewifery!  The joys, the dreads, the exciting discoveries!