Hi, friends!
I hope your Monday was tolerable.
Tonight’s NOT is brought to you by me dropping the giant container of sour cream from Costco when I was in the fridge yesterday. Not only did it gloopy spill on the floor, it definitely was the perfect spot to spill along the bottom edge of my fridge.
So, dear internet friends, have you spilled anything recently that made a surprisingly annoying mess to clean up? Have any horror stories of weirdest things to clean up?
We have a developer-installed fridge that connects to the water pipe which supplies the kitchen sink and the dishwasher, among other things. I love that fridge. It’s indestructible and you can put something in it and six months later some of the food will still be edible. I call it the Cryogenic Chamber.
The one thing I hate about it is that it has an absolutely useless (to us) ice making/ice water function, that no one asked for. At least once a year we have to have someone come in to take a look at it because it will leak. So, water, not that bad, but the floors are treated hardwood and that’s tough enough to keep looking habitable, without having to worry about my kitchen looking like it was a “Raise The Titanic” operation.
A few years ago I asked the tech who came in to fix it, once again, if we could just shut down the ice water and ice cube crap and fill ice trays and be done with it. He said no, because that’s how the whole thing was built to work. It cools, it freezes, it makes ice cubes, it will generate ice water. He told me the water line must be behind the cabinets that run along the wall and then take a left to this beloved fridge, so I could hire a workman to get in there and maybe disable that, but, you know (wink wink) this is New York so it might take three months and make your kitchen unusable.
Vesuvius hasn’t erupted and spewed water for a couple of years but I bet like summer residents of Pompeii I’m living on borrowed time.
I’d bet the guy was just fishing for $200 for a quick job. If you want to, pull the fridge back from the wall and look for the water line into the fridge. Then look under the sink for a line that matches it. Maybe it’s connected in some crazy spot, but usually it just goes under the kitchen sink.
You may not want to disconnect it yourself, but now you’ll know. Most fridges will work fine with them disconnected, and if there’s easy access on both sides it should be quick to take care of.
Nooooo that’s horribly stressful!
It’s nearly impossible to buy a fridge without the ice/water thingy. I know, I tried to do so and failed. We still have to buy ice to supplement the meager output, and the bags of ice take valuable freezer space.
I must have been British or European in a previous life because I don’t like ice cubes. We have a wine fridge that keeps the white wine chilled, but otherwise, all the drinks for me are room temp. BH loves the ice cubes. So does Faithful Hound, when added to his water bowl. They’re nuts, both of them.
Even iced tea? Amazing.
Then again, I have no problem drinking hot beverages that have cooled to room temp, so I certainly have no room to be surprised here. 🙂
I have a few friends who bought those countertop ice makers for that situation and I feel like that’s the way to go. You don’t need a waterline, just an electrical outlet and some counterspace/table/etc to sit it on.
So true! We got one whose ice maker can be shut off but it still takes up precious room in our freezer. At least it doesn’t spew ice water too.
I helped demo a bathroom today & broke a sink with a hammer that shattered & ripped a big hole in my shin. Then moved on to building a deck & got hit in the head with a 20 foot piece of decking. Now exhausted & having a gin & tonic before I attempt not getting injured making dinner!
Oh, shit, are you okay?? Any concussion symptoms? Is walking painful with the shin damage?
I’m fine. Big shin gash, lots of blood but no pain. No concussion, just a little bump & surprise “what did I do to you” when board swung randomly & connected. Pretty surprised I didn’t get worst!
Okay, whew!
😬
This time of year, spilled waterproof sun screen can be a giant pain to clean up.
The most recent was a couple weeks back, when I ended up in a bit of a “shut down” state and it took me 45 minutes to do 3 minutes of microwaving/ food prep…
I think I whinged about it here–
*Something* from one of the top two shelves in our fridge (I’m pretty sure it was the oil/brine from one roommate’s Feta Cheese & Olives) got spilled down *all* the lower shelves in the fridge–and as usual, no one cleaned it up, until I got home…
Thing is, that cleanup of all the now-slimy things on *my* shelf, used up the last of the spoons I had available that day.
Including that last spoon I needed, to make myself some supper, before my sugars crashed🙃
So I just stood there, unable to move, not able to *think* past, “I need to eat, ut now I don’t know *what* to eat, because I can’t *find* the things I needed to make my sandwich!” (I’d completely forgotten that I’d gotten the Target-brand mayo, not Kraft, and *that* was why I couldn’t find what I was looking for–the jar looks like Miracle Whip, if you can’t easily see the front label!)…
I stood there, *trying* to think, trying to process “what to do *next* and was completely unable–literally just wanting to scream, instead… I hadn’t felt like that in *years,* but it was something that had happened every so often when I was in my teens & 20’s.
discovered this article a couple days after–which was enlightening to say the least!🥴
It *was* really comforting to learn “it’s a thing” though!😉💖
And now that I’m not so stressed out, with the end of the school year & having to *push through* so much, the “frozen & unable to *do* anything” feeling is passing by a lot more easily, too!
The one “worst” time I don’t know if I’ll *ever* forget, was when I worked at the daycare in my home town, back in the late 90’s.
I worked there with two of my younger cousins–the youngest was 16 or so (i was 22-ish)… it was near the end of the day, and my little cousin was outside with most of the kids, while I finished up clearing up snack, and was waiting for one of the little girls who “needed to go potty” before going out after snack.
The little one mentioned that she “didn’t feel good” juuuust before she *horked* allllll over the bathroom floor…😱😱😱
I looked at her, looked at the floor, *she started to cry* and I realized, “Oh CRAP!!! I’m the Grownup here, and *I* have to clean this up!!!”😳😳😳
Because I knew that, as much as I *could* have been *the asshole* and asked my little cousin to come in & clean it, that would be SO unfair! And I just *couldn’t* do that to her!!!
She was a high-schooler, and *I* was nominally “The Adult in charge” that afternoon…
Sooooo i closed the door, took the little girl to the *other* bathroom, got her cleaned up & into fresh clothes, got her outside with something to lay down on in the shade, and told my cousin what had happened–before going back in to clean the *worst* type of mess I can deal with.
I can handle urine, feces, blood, bile, animal vomit, *everything* else!!! But the *smell* of human vomit is the *one* thing that will turn my stomach!😆😂🤣
But I got it cleaned up, sanitized, and I sucked it up & *didn’t* tap out or make my little cousin do anything– other than staying outside with the *rest* of the kids–so that no one *else* horked from the smell!😉
Horror-story wise, the only other thing I can think of, was back when Lily was a puppy, and the vet gave me the de-worming pills…
She was my first puppy that *i* dealt with, and I had no clue before that, about what “puppy de-worming” entailed…
If I *had* known–at mminimum–i would’ve pulled her kennel over onto the *hard* floor, rather than left it on the carpet that day!😖😵😱
I gave her the meds in the morning before leaving for work…
When I got home that afternoon?
The smell hit me, as soon as I opened the door & walked onto the landing/foyer….
I got up the stairs (split-level ranch house), and poor, sad, little Lily was just *standing* in her kennel, head hanging, looking *so* defeated & miserable, and absolutely COVERED in slimy diarrhea!😟🥺😱😱😱😱
I didn’t even know *what* to do, at first! I let Lucy (my roommate’s older dog) outside, then *carefully* opened Lil’s lennel, picked her up, and put her out the back door…
Then I realized there was *no* way to get the tray out of Lily’s kennel, without spilling at least *some* of the stinky-liquid-slime on it… so I *carefully* lifted the whole thing and slide-carried it into the upstairs bathroom (moved the bathroom rug and opened up the shower curtain first!).
Then I grabbed a roll of paper towels & a trash bag, wiped up as much of the poo-slime+worms as i could, slid the tray out of the kennel, and *hosed it ALL* down, with some water & Mr. Clean…
After the tray was clean, the wire kennel got scrubbed–then i took *those* out to dry in the sunshine on the back deck, got Lil, and gave *her* a bath!😆😂🤣
She was MUCH better & happier after her bath (no more wormy tummy, after all!), and that was the last/only time we had to deal with worms–thaaaank goodness!😉
And after dealing with ^all that,^ i now *know* that if I ever need to give a puppy de-worming meds, *get a tarp* pull OUT their kennel, and make sure that *someone* is nearby to watch the poor dear & get them cleaned up *before* that sweet little puppy has to sit in it allll day!
I had a similar experience but it was my best friend’s vomit and we were both adults. We were painting at one of those pottery shops and “sneaking out” to drink shots at the bar nextdoor. She puked all over the pottery shop’s bathroom. While usually even the mention of puke makes me gag, I psyched myself up with positive affirmations like “You can do it!” and cleaned until the bathroom was spotless.
not recently….last bad spill was probably about 10 years ago…..when i still kept my deep fryer full of oil on the side of the kitchen top
not entirely sure what happened either…..various substances were involved…you know one of those nights
but i woke up spread eagled on the kitchen floor in a goddamn lake of fryer oil with a broken upside down fryer nearby….
then took out half the kitchen trying to stand up…..not easy in oil turns out…
clean up for that was a bitch
You just unlocked a childhood memory of mine. My sister and I once drove a forklift into a stack of pallets stacked with 20L barrels of cooking oil. Never leave your children unsupervised in a warehouse or at the very least hide the keys to the forklift.
HZ, this sounds EPIC (and also *terrible* to have had to clean up!!!!)😆😂🤣💖💖💖
I did the same thing but I dropped a big tupperware of tomato soup.
Was cleaning soup up for a year. Little splashes just randomly around.
I hate breaking glass in the kitchen — that shit just goes everywhere, and years later you still find a random shard. I might have done just that this past weekend.