Cleaning Supplies and Adulthood. What gives?
Did anyone else take cleaning supplies for granted? I grew up in a large family (shout out to the Catholic doctrine) and be it by necessity or the American thrill of having a stockpile of EVERYTHING, my mother — in charge of household shopping — bought in bulk. Adding to the absolutely outrageous amount of crap we had, my dad is an auctioneer and frequently liquidates businesses whose inventory sometimes ended up on our shelves. Never did I imagine the day the Windex bottle would finally be without blue liquid or I’d have to pay for toilet paper. (True story: my dad liquidated some company that apparently had a ton of shitters because we did not have to buy toilet paper for five years.) Now that I’m living on my own, I seriously fantasize about the industrial grade racking in my parents’ garage that serves as the holding place for all the toilet bowl cleaner, buckets, and wipes. Oh, how I long to steal shit off that shelf.
I now frequent the Dollar Tree. A discount store made for the modern middle class (probably) and myself, it has a decent range of inert cleaning products and some brooms that were used as evidence during the Salem Witch Trials. This is where I get my stash. Rarely do I ever fork over the cash necessary to buy streak-free glass cleaner because I had no idea how expensive it can actually be. 4 bucks to see myself clearly in the mirror? Hard pass. I drink coffee every day because my priorities are in order. I don’t need to see myself in the mirror when it is transparent how good with money I am. I AM AN ADULT.
There is no denying the rush I get if and when I do decide to splurge on some Dawn instead of Clean-O or whatever generic bullshit I roll my eyes at. Is this adulthood? This is adulthood, right? After using one-ply toilet paper for about a month, upgrading to two-ply felt like wiping with Egyptian cotton. And this shit genuinely excites me and honestly, so does shitting when I get to wipe with fancy shmancy two-ply. Maybe one day I will work myself up into a salary that makes three-ply affordable, but I can’t imagine wiping with a blanket and that shit is mad expensive, man.
I recently moved into a bigger room (yes, room… because I live in Los Angeles) and the floor stretched with more cleaning responsibilities. In this move, however, I dropped two of the grossest, dirtiest roommates the good Lord has seen. Thank God I still have laminate floors because honestly, a vacuum is a luxury purchase at this point. Is Dyson out of his DAMN mind?
I am staving off the inevitable purchase of cleaning supplies right now. In December, I will go back to Alaska and once again visit that treasure trove my parents call a cleaning shelf with my suitcase wide open, ready to stuff with all the bleach and lye my little heart desires. And never again will I take that shit for granted.
