“What a rare mood I’m in, why it’s almost like being…”<\/p>\n
Well, the song goes on to say, it’s “almost like being in love.” \u00a0But that’s not how I would finish the lyric today. \u00a0Today it’s “almost like being…Mike Rowe.”<\/p>\n
You know Mike Rowe…dirty jobs. \u00a0Love that guy. \u00a0Really. \u00a0Wish he’d been here today.<\/p>\n
Thursday morning I discovered that our basement had about \u00a0an inch and a half of water on the floor. \u00a0Not the first time, probably not the last. \u00a0But never something I look forward to.<\/p>\n
Called our reliable guy Chuck from Best Results in Redford. Chuck came out and cleared my outside pipes, which were clogged with tree roots, string and other items that I have NO IDEA how they got there. \u00a0Truly.<\/p>\n
And my brain wants to figure out mysteries like this (thank you papa). \u00a0So Thursday night I dreamt that we had moved away from this house and then moved back and the people who lived here in between must have flushed these stupid things down the toilet. \u00a0Not true, but apparently the only explanation my subconscious could come up with.<\/p>\n
We have been here before. \u00a0The water in my basement is not coming in from the outside, it is already here and finds it impossible to leave so it stays, in the basement, until Chuck comes and clears the way.<\/p>\n
Once Chuck clears the way, my Handsome Prince then comes in with hose and bleach and makes it all better.<\/p>\n
Only that didn’t happen this time. \u00a0This time there is no time. \u00a0No spare time. \u00a0My Handsome Prince has been working, a lot. \u00a0A LOT. \u00a0And there is no time for him to make it all better. \u00a0And frankly, it smells. \u00a0Not nice. \u00a0And the house smells. \u00a0Not nice.<\/p>\n
So I had to pony up and do it myself.<\/p>\n
And I learned a few things about washing the basement floor. \u00a0It is not a pleasant job to begin with, but my house, my precious house, where I have raised my family and lived and loved and whatever, this house makes the job harder. \u00a0And here’s why:<\/p>\n
Top Five things that make this dirty job dirtier…<\/strong><\/p>\n 5. \u00a0Not enough light.<\/strong> \u00a0We have plenty of flourescent light fixtures in the basement, but one by one they have stopped working. \u00a0No it’s not the bulbs, we have replaced them. \u00a0Consequently, anything done in the basement must be done with the light from the windows (and therefore in the daytime) aided by one lone light bulb. \u00a060\u00a0watt. \u00a0The job must be done in the day. \u00a0Handsome Prince works all day. \u00a0Ergo, I must do the job, thus making it dirtier, for me.<\/p>\n 4. The instinct that one should not be running a hose in the basement. <\/strong>Common sense\u00a0says, Do Not Pour Water Onto The Basement Floor. \u00a0And yet, I must pour water onto the basement floor. \u00a0This is not a bucket and mop job. \u00a0This calls for more water. \u00a0Lots more water.<\/p>\n I used a hose. \u00a0Attached to the wash tub sink. \u00a0A hose, a large broom, bleach, and a squeegee. (Okay, I have never written that word out before. \u00a0I’ve never seen it. \u00a0Just guessed at the spelling. \u00a0Expected spell check to catch it. \u00a0Seems I spelled it correctly. \u00a0That is one weird word. \u00a0Squeegee.)<\/p>\n Initially, I was tentative about the hose, and very sparing with the water. \u00a0I got over that. \u00a0By the end I was enjoying hosing down the basement. \u00a0Though it occurred to me that perhaps the washer and dryer should not be running while I was pouring water underneath them. \u00a0In fact, they should probably be unplugged. \u00a0Now kids, don’t do this at home, I paused long enough to, successfully, unplug them both, and then resumed a very liberal application of water to the basement. \u00a0I think I will wait until the floor and furnace duct vents are dry before plugging them back in. \u00a0If the ceiling is dry, the bottom of the washer and dryer should be too, right?<\/p>\n 3.\u00a0Clumping Kitty Litter.<\/strong> I have a cat. \u00a0He requires a litter box. \u00a0Clumping kitty litter is a wonderful innovation that makes litter clean up easy. \u00a0Until your basement floods. \u00a0Then clumping litter is the plague. \u00a0You don’t know how well you haven’t<\/em> swept the floor until you soak it and discover clumping kitty litter sludge. \u00a0This must be swept up independently of the cleaning the floor. \u00a0Don’t want this sludge going down the drain, that will just cause the whole cycle to start over again.<\/p>\n 2.\u00a0Water soluble Paint.<\/strong> \u00a0You read that right. \u00a0My basement floor was painted in water soluble red paint. \u00a0Who does that? \u00a0Who makes that?! \u00a0I would like to know. \u00a0What Einstein made it? What Genius bought it? And what Fool applied it to what has become MY basement floor? Whenever the floor gets wet, the paint comes up and attaches itself to whatever is nearby: clothing, bedding, walls…<\/p>\n We painted over the red paint, with actual floor paint. \u00a0In grey. \u00a0Trouble is the grey paint is sticking to the red paint and the red paint isn’t sticking to anything but my laundry. \u00a0The result is a river of paint chips that must not be permitted to go down the drain, lest we begin the entire cycle again.<\/p>\n But preventing the paint chips from washing down the drain is not as hard as one would think, because of the number 1. thing that makes this dirty job dirtier…<\/p>\n 1. Drains placed at the high points of the floor.<\/strong>\u00a0 I have two drains in my basement. \u00a0Neither one is anywhere near the lowest point of the basement floor. \u00a0In fact, the lowest part of the basement floor is underneath the stairs. \u00a0If there were a topographic map of my basement, you could name the two mountains Drain 1 and Drain 2.<\/p>\n So the water must be encouraged, no, forced really, to go where no water wants to go: \u00a0Up. \u00a0Up to the drains.<\/p>\n This is best done with a broom. \u00a0A squeegee is ok, but the floor resembles a ski hill of moguls and the squeegee is so long it does not make complete contact with the floor. \u00a0This gives the water an escape, a way to avoid doing what is unnatural.<\/p>\n So I used the broom mostly. \u00a0And the hose. \u00a0I hosed down the floor for a really long time. \u00a0A really long time. \u00a0When the basement stopped smelling bad I knew it was time for the bleach.<\/p>\n Cool thing about bleach is that it sort of makes little suds when scrubbed into the floor with a broom. \u00a0After letting the bleach sit on the floor for a time, I picked up the hose again. \u00a0Now, with the bleach suds I could see the way the water ran. \u00a0Happily it does seem to want to run away from the walls, so the floor by the walls must be slightly elevated.<\/p>\n As I’ve said, the big pond is under the stairs, with a slightly smaller pond just south of it, and separated by a nice mound of floor. \u00a0The drain by the washer and dryer is useless. \u00a0Completely useless. \u00a0The second drain, thankfully is actually low enough to receive water. \u00a0I knew I had enough water on the floor when I could make white caps with the broom.<\/p>\n And now my basement floor is clean. \u00a0Wonderfully clean. \u00a0The dirty job is done.<\/p>\n I believe I will reward myself with a trip to the library, where I can escape into someone else’s world for a time. \u00a0I love fiction, but I don’t write it. \u00a0No point. \u00a0My life is stranger, messier, funnier and filled with more adventure than anything I could dream up.<\/p>\n And while I enjoy my sitcom, sometimes I like to turn the channel and enjoy someone else’s for a time.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" “What a rare mood I’m in, why it’s almost like being…” Well, the song goes on to say, it’s “almost like being in love.” \u00a0But that’s not how I would finish the lyric today. \u00a0Today it’s “almost like being…Mike Rowe.” You know Mike Rowe…dirty jobs. \u00a0Love that guy. \u00a0Really. \u00a0Wish he’d been here today. Thursday […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1151","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2O0qX-iz","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.choosingcomedy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1151","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.choosingcomedy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.choosingcomedy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.choosingcomedy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.choosingcomedy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1151"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.choosingcomedy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1151\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1156,"href":"http:\/\/www.choosingcomedy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1151\/revisions\/1156"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.choosingcomedy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.choosingcomedy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1151"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.choosingcomedy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}