My favorite word is BLEACH

Dear all,

Heh. Heh-heh.

So, even though we're moving, it won't be for another fifteen days or so--our new landlord is doing some needed repairs to the condo. (NOTE: For anyone who's seen the condo, I'm accepting suggestions for the condo's new nickname; right now, I'm thinking "The Beachhouse," since it is long and narrow, like a beachhouse, and it's right next to the duck pond.)

Thus, I'm going to have to live with the mold for a few more days. However, I don't have to stand idly by and suffer--no, not in the least bit.

This is where I start cackling maniacally.

So I went to Smith's and bought a large bottle of Tilex--it's the disinfectant spray with the largest percentage of bleach in it, and it'll kill just about anything that moves, given a sufficient quantity. And I vowed to use a more-than-sufficient quantity.

I also bought the economy-size jug of Chlorox wipes, a pair of rubber gloves, a microfiber cloth, a jar of peanut butter (because killing mold works up an appetite), and a tube of toothpaste (so I can look good afterward).

Coming home, I got out my respirator, the industrial-grade one I wear when I spray lacquer on my woodworking projects. Then I got out the Tilex. I went to the bathroom and sprayed the walls, the ceiling, the shower, the exhaust fan, the etagere (the cabinet over the toilet), the atomic clock. YES, I EVEN SPRAYED THE FREAKING CLOCK. And then I scrubbed, hard--the walls, the ceiling (I got some bleach in my eyes with that one, but I didn't care), the lightswitch, the shower-curtain rod. Out came the wipes for a second pass.

Now the whole apartment smells like an indoor swimming pool, and the bathroom's clean enough to perform a heart transplant on the toilet. Will the mold come back? Sadly, it probably will, since we have every reason to suspect that it's infiltrated the walls from the inside-out. However, if it ever peeps its little fuzzy head into my bathroom again, chemical death awaits, painful and chlorine-scented.

A thought: Years from now, when my presently non-existent daughters begin dating, I'm going to have their boyfriends read this post. "As you can see," I will say, as I sharpen a large knife or, perhaps, oil a shotgun, "I take care of the things that harm my family members."