The time I scrubbed the kitchen floor is one of my grandma’s favorite stories to tell about me. I was about four years old. I was visiting at my grandma’s house and I told her to lie on the sofa so that I could take care of her and clean the house. I even made her a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. By the way, my cooking skills have not improved much.
The photoshop skills are strong in this one. Ahem.
Then I pulled a stool up to the sink and washed all of the dishes. For my grand finale, I decided to scrub the kitchen floor.
Be impressed by this fancy “time lapse” drawing.
This was the early 1980s: there were no child safety locks on the cabinets, and despite his popularity back then, there was no Mr. Yuk sticker in sight as I looked under the sink to choose which cleaning products to use. My grandmother’s kitchen was enormous and I probably spent an hour in there on my hands and knees scrubbing the floor while my grandma rested. When I was finished I was so proud of myself and I called my grandma into the room to see the sparkly clean kitchen.
My grandma’s reaction in her own words:
“I will never forget the sight. You had scrubbed the whole floor with Comet and it was so thick on the floor that’s all you could see. When grandpa came home from work he had to really scrub the floor. But you tried and really did a good job with Comet.”
Yes, I had used Comet to scrub the kitchen floor, probably because that’s what we used at home to clean out our cast iron bathtub and it was the only household cleanser that I had prior experience with. The entire kitchen floor was covered in a thick layer of beautiful blue, gritty Comet. My grandma was shocked, but she only praised my hard work. My grandpa, who had to clean up my mess and rewash the dishes, was far less enthusiastic about my “job well done”.
Scrubbing the kitchen floor with Comet? Epic fail! And I can’t really say that my cleaning skills have improved much since then…
Do you have an epic cleaning fail? Did you ever scrub something with Comet that you should’nt have? Let me know in the comments!
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A for effort! I’m pretty sure the house was super clean by the time your grandpa was done re-doing your work. 🙂
Yes, when he was all done it sparkled and shined! It’s amazing what 3 inches of Comet can do for a floor 😉
Well there goes my plan to scrub the kitchen floor with Comet. Guess I will just have to skip scrubbing it all together! 😀
Glad I could help 😉 I don’t think I’ve scrubbed a thing since then. Despite my enthusiasm at the time it’s obvious I was meant for a domestically-challenged lifestyle.
I once used Drano in the steam cleaner because someone moved the bottles around in the coat closet. To be fair, the steam cleaner fluid bottle looked almost exactly like the drano bottle…
haha, oh my! I bet it smelled awful in there, Drano has such a strong smell! Did your grandpa have to clean up your mess when you were done? 😉
Can’t think of any cleaning fails (I don’t think we cleaned much) but I do remember making my parents coffee by poring water right over the grounds in the cup. We could not distinguish ground coffee from instant. Bleah.
Oh, that sounds, um, tasty. My sister and I once made eggs for our parents by microwaving them. Delightful. 😉
This is hilarious and I love your posts – so much so that I’ve nominated you for The Liebster Award 🙂 Thank you for all the support you’ve given me and for the good laughs – I hope my readers get the chance to stop by and visit you because everyone can use a blog like yours in their life!! 🙂
Thanks so much, Jen! 🙂 Some day I’ll get around to putting my Liebster post up. I’m such a blogging failure lately!
You are so funny. I thought I was bad when I sprayed an entire bottle of the scrubbing bubbles into my grandmother’s tub and cried when I didn’t see the little bubble dudes zooming around and cleaning. Your story is much better though. I featured it on my blog today, come check it out! http://makingourlifematter.com/link-love-weekend-04-12-14/
Have a good weekend Jenn!
Aw, I would’ve been upset too! We never had scrubbing bubbles, but I loved the little scrubby guys. What a disappointment!
Thanks so much, you rock! 🙂
Haha! I love it! And you’ve gotta love the enthusiasm of children. That’s why I fully plan to exploit—er, nurture my 2-year-old’s current love of cleaning. 🙂
Yeah, it’s hard to even remember a time when I was so eager to help with the housework. I got over it quick! Unfortunately my kids don’t seem to have a love of cleaning either :/ When your 2 year old is done at your house, send him over here!
I love your comics! So glad I clicked over from the Sharefest! You’re hilarious 🙂
Aw, thanks, Christy 🙂 So glad you found me.
I love that your grandmother just praised your hard work! Your poor grandfather though, lol :). It’s always nice but dicey when kids want to ‘help’ with chores!
In my grandma’s eyes I could do no wrong, it’s great to be the favorite 😉 Poor Grandpa. That wasn’t the only time I (or my sister) made a mess he had to clean, poor guy.