The Mr. Clean Incident in 1980 Something

 

Did you grow up in a Mr. Clean house?  I’m not sure if it’s still around today, but in the 1980s, it was a household cleaner.  There were lots of commercials with catchy jingles.  

Somewhere along the way, they created the magic erasers and I lost track of it after that.  

It had a nice, citrusy smell that smelled like something had been cleaned, but it wasn’t overwhelming like cleaners today.  You could use it in the bathroom and kitchen.  My mother had it under the kitchen sink and used it to wash the floor and counters.  I vividly remember the color and smell.

It’s probably off the market because it’s another thing that tried to kill us.

 Why am I bringing this up?  Because I noticed I had left the dish soap open on the edge of the sink this morning, something I NEVER DO,  and whenever I see an open bottle of dish soap, I immediately close it because this story plays out in my head every time.

It’s after supper in 1980 something.  I’m old enough to bake so it’s probably 1986 or so.  I’m making a cake.  My mother isn’t home but my father is.  It’s probably a bowling night.  My mother bowled in a league for years and only later did I realize not everyone’s mother bowled.  I thought everyone’s mother did.

There is an open bottle of Mr. Clean on the edge of the sink.  This is important information. 

I’ve mixed up the batter for a yellow cake, probably from a box, and I’ve poured it into a baking dish. I’m carrying it to the oven. The oven door is open, waiting.  

Somehow, I hit the edge of the baking dish on the rack and the entire thing topples over onto the open oven door.  Cake batter goes EVERYWHERE.  Inside the oven, outside the oven, and down into the door of the oven.  Today, oven doors seem to be all window but remember how they used to have small windows in them in the 80s?  Somehow cake batter seeped into that part of the door.  

When I say it went everywhere, I’m not kidding.

Did I mention the oven was already preheated?  

Cake batter, hot oven, gigantic mess.

I can’t remember if I started crying, screaming, or just tried to clean it up myself.  At some point, my father comes in and starts to help.  And in the process of helping, he knocks over the opened bottle of Mr. Clean.

Now there is cake batter EVERYWHERE and also, Mr. Clean is EVERYWHERE.

Remember how I said it had a pleasant, citrusy smell?  You know how yellow cake batter has a smell, kind of like dirty feet, until it’s cooked?  Imagine these two smells together.  Along with a hot oven blowing out heat through the door that’s covered in batter and now some of that cake batter is starting to cook.  So a third smell is entering the room: the pleasant smell of a baked yellow cake.

What happened next is blurry but I know my father was livid.  There was a lot of  Mr. Clean in the sink and on the counters and I don’t know where else.   Things needed to be cleaned up but also, the oven was still hot.  At some point, I assume once things cooled but I don’t remember, my father took the door off the oven and unscrewed it so he could get in and clean the cake batter out.

At some point, my mother came home.  I have long forgotten whether she walked in during all of this or if everything was back to normal by the time she got home.  What would make this even more entertaining at this point would have been her arriving while my father was sitting on the floor, oven door parts all around, me standing there, cake batter dripping from everywhere. I don’t think any of that happened.  I think most of the mess had been cleaned up by the time she got home and all that was left was the now way too strong smell of Mr. Clean.

And a lesson learned to NEVER leave a bottle of any cleaners open.  

Free Dirt

When I was really young, I read a book about all kinds of crafts and for some reason, there was a section on gardening.  I read that you can throw weeds and scraps into a pile and they will break down and make new soil.  This fascinated me.  I was thrifty before I even knew I was thrifty so I knew I’d do this composting thing,  This idea of recycling and getting free dirt full of nutrients has never left my brain and I've been a big composter ever since.

For decades, I had a pile beside the garden that was mostly lawn clippings and weeds.  When I got serious about growing things, I started saving all food scraps except meat and bones, and I'd bury it in the compost to keep the critters from getting it.  I didn't have any kind of fancy bins or containment system, it was just free form.

This served me well and still does, but a few years back, I decided to try one of the tumblers.  I liked the idea of having it closer to the house than the compost pile, which means in the winter, it's much nicer to just run out back to add scraps and supposedly it breaks material down faster because it's black and heats a lot faster than the compost pile/ It's plastic, so I wrestled with my thoughts about plastic and food but in the end, I decided to try it.

My method is to add scraps all month.  At the end of the month, I leave it to sit and do its thing.  About a month after that, depending on the time of year, it's usually mostly ready for sifting and reuse.

I have a very posh system that begins with putting a tarp under the tumbler to catch all of the compost.  This is no easy feat because the compost never wants to just fall out nicely.  It's a round container with a rectangular opening, and I'm sure if I had paid attention in physics or geometry, I would know that these two shapes plus gravity make no sense.  I have to sort of rock it back and forth a bunch of times and even then, I don't usually get all of it. 

I always feel like that bit left over is the starter for the next round.

Kind of like when you make your own yogurt and you need a little starter to make it work.

Once I have as much out of there as I can get, I take it to the next part of my amazing system which is a bread crate with wood support so it fits in the wheelbarrow and stays put.  It has fairly large holes so I get some little bits of sticks and stuff but I don't care.  I'm not selling this compost so I don't feel like it has to be pressed through a fine mesh to get every last thing out of it.

Some people use a piece of wood to slide back and forth over the compost to shake it all down, but I just use my hands.  I keep sliding all of it back and forth until I'm left with whatever hasn't broken down and that goes back into the tumbler.

Then I'm left with some really nice dirt that's also really light and fluffy from all of the sifting.

I'm fairly impressed with how this system works so I use it for all of my food scraps. In the winter, it takes a couple of months for everything to break down, but it's usually good by spring. 

I bought a second one that's not as nice, so now when one is resting, I have one to put new scraps in.  I still use my pile for all lawn clippings and most weeds and in the spring, I sift it to get all of the soil for new seeds to start.

People get worked up about neighbors composting because they say it brings rats.  What doesn't bring rats?  I suppose having a contained system like the tumblers is better than just a wild pile of scraps that anyone can just help themselves to.  However you decide to do it, composting pays off.  You get your food scraps taken care of, so less trash, you get free dirt so you can start your own seeds in good soil and you get the satisfaction of keeping that circle going.