The Vinegar

Unlike my plans, I didn't go to the tattoo convention today. Nor did I spend the day trying to catch 'em all.

Now, don't get me wrong, I did play on the 3DS. But then J. called us over for a late lunch (we slept late again) and I had to do groceries.

Now, we can survive a weekend without bread, and I could have stolen Boyfriend's shower gel, but I didn't want to. And while I was there, I bought a banana, muffin cups and some vinegar. No fancy apple or white wine stuff, just ordinary white table vinegar. Under a euro, comes in huge bottles, just the stuff I was looking for. I spent about half an hour more looking all over the store for something else, but I didn't find it. Poo. I looked over the cheap candy and decided to chuck in something called 'fizz powder'. It had bright colors and was cheaper than dirt. Trying couldn't hurt.


If you recall, our shower is blocked. Or, more precisely, was blocked.

Boyfriend brought home baking soda yesterday. In the huge supermarket 2 km away, you can get it in quantities higher than 25 grams per package. For the way I've been using the stuff lately, I need waaaaay more, but the 250 grams Boyfriend bought will do for now.

So I tidied the kitchen, loaded the dishwasher and did the dishes. I wanted to find stuff in the kitchen again. It's a quirk of mine that I want to know where stuff is when I use that particular corner of the house. Cereal dust in pasta or breadcrumbs of dubious age in muffins do not make for appetizing cookery. It's this quirk that's taught me that 'chucking deep frozen food in the oven and waiting' doesn't fall under cooking, since you don't require to clear the countertops, scrub the cooker, do the hand dishes and make the sink shine before you do it. Then I took the baking soda to the bathroom, with my glorious vinegar.

The internet had clear instructions on what needed to be done, though I was rather skeptical. I was going to have to do this at least twice. It was too cheap. Too easy.

Upon arriving, I noticed Boyfriend had forgotten the shower was clogged and shaved under there. There were two inches of soapy, hairy water and a drain that was downright blocked with hair. Yum.

I spent some time fishing out enough hair to have some drainage, then realised I could plug the hole with one of the two plugs we have for our single kitchen sink. Back to the kitchen, fetch plug, regain skeptical pose next to the shower.

Then I chucked two 50 gram sachets of baking soda down the drain. The drain was so blocked, it didn't agree with this plan. It required a lot of poking and rubbing and in the end, a little bit of water, to make the slurry go down. Turns out, baking soda doesn't stay dry and granular in a moist shower. After learning this, I measured out one hundred mils of vinegar and poured that after it, then tried to push in the plug. Anyone with a basic knowledge of chemistry knows why this failed miserably for the first two minutes. Plug in place, I poked my head into the living room where Boyfriend and friend were playing video games. Could he put on an alarm for half an hour from now, please?

Then the vinegar was used as fabric softener for the towels. Then I made a vinegar-and-shampoo mixture for my brush and soaked it.

Then I gave up all semblance of sanity and cleaned the entire bathroom by hand. The floors of it are quite clean, but somehow, the rest of it gets covered in a gray, dust-based, sticky film after a while. Oh, and there were soap stains near the washing machine and where we stored the washing powder.

Half an hour later, I was definitely done with the bathroom. I boiled a full kettle of water, since Boyfriend had said it had been half an hour, then I tied up the trash and took the dishes from the dishwasher, since those were done. The boiled water went down the shower drain with suspicious ease. I tried putting on the shower hose to discredit this total and utter witchcraft, but no, the drain was unclogged. Without poisoning either me or the dog with vapours. For under two euros. Nothing damaged on the tub, even the scum I'd been unable to scrub off was gone from the drain. My brush wasn't as clean as I'd like, but it smelled better.

Iggy couldn't be forgotten in this fest of domesticity, so I cleaned his food bowls, scrubbed the mess away on the floor where they usually stood and bribed Iggy himself to stay in his basket for ten minutes with a treat. He's now accepting those by hand. Next step, convincing him that treats are stronger than fear.

This had contaminated my perfectly sanitary kitchen, so I cleaned it all over again.

I also had a shopping bag with holes near the handles. It's one of the two of that model I have. They're double as expensive as the usual canvas shopping bags available in Belgian supermarkets, but it has its bag (in which it remains tiny and manageable for a purse) sewn in. For those interested, it's the shopping bag offered by Veritas. I'd like more, should anyone be wondering what kind of surprise package to send me. Anyway, I couldn't leave it like that. I needed to try and save it. So I broke out my sewing kit (I have black thread, white thread and sewing needles) and clumsily stitched the holes closed with quadrupled thread and hope. Oh, and double knots. Mustn't forget those. I don't know how well it'll hold, but it looks strong.

I was still feeling like I had to do something more productive than try and get that one Pokémon I wanted to trade for another one, so I made some jelly pudding for the boys. Then I made chocolate muffins. Then I made raspberry muffins. Somewhere in there, I hung up the first load of laundry and put in a second load of towels. The washing powder masked the smell of vinegar quite well. I've yet to see if it actually softens the towels, but I'm hopeful.

There's nothing more to do for now. I can give in to the videogame-y depravity of it all, guilt-free. Until the laundry's done, anyway.