divine angst

Our house is neater than it’s ever been. (I won’t say cleaner, since I didn’t have time to dust and vacuum yesterday, but that’s just around the corner.)

Did you know that it hurts when you inhale cleaner with bleach? I ensconced myself in my bathtub yesterday, determined to rid it of soap scum and mineral deposits from our hard-ish water. It was perfectly acceptable for me as it was—I do clean somewhat regularly—but the realtor is coming today! So I doused all three walls and the sliding shower door with Clorox Clean Up^©. And I began to scrub. And then I felt a strange feeling in my nose and mouth.

I coughed. And kept scrubbing. I coughed again, and noticed that the back of my throat was burning. I coughed again and again, and then I thought I was going to vomit. It was all I could do to pull myself out of the shower and lean over the sink, just in case. (I did not vomit. Thank God.)

But I kept coughing. I breathed and could hear myself wheeze. Oh no! Clorox^©-induced asthma! I thought. I went downstairs and drank water, I sat down, I watched my hands tremble. And when I felt better, I went back upstairs to my bathroom, crawled back into the tub and repeated the adventure ALL OVER AGAIN.

After the second round of violent coughing, I decided I’d leave it be for a while. And I cleaned the dining room instead. Did you know Endust^©; can make a scratched-up wood surface look less scratched up? I have an antique buffet that was in my grandparents’ house. It needs to be refinished, but I have neither the time nor the money for that, so I use Endust^© whenever possible to make it look less battered.

Once the dining room was clean, I went back to the bathroom where, thankfully, most of the airborne Clorox^© had dissipated. I finished scrubbing. I cleaned the sink, the mirror, the toilet. And then I moved onto the other bathroom.

Our bathrooms are sparkling. They look like hotel bathrooms. They are nearly empty, in fact, which is sort of depressing. But they are clean and neat, and that’s all that matters.

In combination with our very neat but much emptier bookshelves and my sparkling kitchen, our house is probably ready for our realtor to look at. I expect to hear him say we need to paint (which I have no intention of doing, our paint is fine); I expect to hear him say we need a thorough cleaning (which I will be happy to pay someone to do). So I just need to get to that place where I feel like we’re actually doing this. We’re actually selling our home.