So That Sucked.

The powers that be are seriously messing with me today.

It's a Saturday night, and I don't have plans, but that's okay, because my landlord is having a cookout tomorrow and has asked if I wouldn't mind doing my laundry tonight instead of tomorrow morning. Plus, it's the first Saturday night in forever that Em, my virtual roommate, is home, sans boyfriend or show to run, and thus available to watch Sex and the City DVD's with me while we both do laundry. This is exciting. I made pizza...opened up some cheap wine...settled in for the night.

So I go into the laundry room to change loads, and there is a vast pond...nay, LAGOON...of blue liquid standing between myself and, well, anything else I could possibly want to get to in the laundry room. In the middle of the lagoon is the jug...nay, TANKER...of Wisk that I purchased about two weeks ago, with the expectation that it would last me a good 6 months. The yellow cap is nowhere to be found, only a small shard of yellow plastic mid-lagoon remains as evidence that it ever actually existed and was not, in fact, merely the product of a deranged imagination.

FUCK.

Now, I feel the need to mention here that this is, in fact, the SECOND time I have found my tanker on the floor this evening, oozing its April-fresh goodness on the concrete floor. The first time, it appeared as though someone had, for whatever reason, taken it down from its perch on top of the dryer, and set it down on the floor, without knowing that the cap was not tightly closed. I wasn't happy about that spill either, but it wasn't too big (about a large load or maybe two's worth), and I managed to clean it up fairly quickly and restore the tanker to its rightful place. Apparently, it was not human intervention that was to blame - it was the appliance that had decided it no longer wanted to carry the white man's burden and chucked off its foamy shackles. Twice.

I don't know if you've ever tried to mop up a viscous cleaning product. It pretty much sucks. No matter how much you mop, it's still foamy. There's a REASON your washing machine uses a lot of water to rinse this stuff out of your clothes...unfortunately, the floor does not have a spin cycle. Now, I was at least smart enough to remember that I have a little squeegee-type thing, and there is a drain in the floor, so I set to work sweeping the lagoon down the drain in order to make the mopping portion of the evening go a little more smoothly.

Of course, a hidden peril lies in sweeping things down a drain that doesn't get used very often. Namely, things that are settled in for the night...perhaps trying to have a quiet Saturday night watching Insects and the City while IMing other bugs in St. Louis who are also home with nothing to do...tend to be just a wee bit pissed off. I can't say I blame them - if someone came along and started pouring Wisk all over my apartment while I was just trying to chill out and mind my own business, I'd be pretty torked off too. Suffice it to say, I rousted the biggest fucking house centipede I've ever had the misfortune to come face to face with out of his happy home.

I should say here that I am not, as a rule, a big weenie Girl when it comes to bugs. I'll swat a silverfish, earwig, or spider without really giving it any thought. But I really, REALLY hate centipedes, and living in a basement, I have to contend with them with some frequency. I know they eat pretty much everything else, and thus I should just leave them be and let them police the grounds, but even when I find one that's already dead they freak me the fuck out. Anything with that many legs simply should not happen. And the bigger they are and the faster they move, the more they give me the willies.

So picture it, if you will: The Hulkipede has skittered to the relative safety under the furnace, waiting to make his move. I am now squatting over the lagoon, armed with a squeegee in one hand and a shoe in the other, constantly shooting furtive glances in all directions but not at all convinced that, in the event of a standoff, I will emerge victorious. I am barefoot, my cow pajamas rolled up around my calves to avoid being tracked through detergent, but at the same time in grave danger of falling off of my ass and giving me plumber butt from hell. The couple of glasses of wine I've had at this point are doing nothing for my coordination, balance, or nerves.

Something tells me this is a position Angelina Jolie has never been in.

I manage to get as much squeegeed as is possible, so it's now time to turn to the mop. The only one I can find is a tiny little one in the corner that looks like it's seen better and more absorbent days, but what the hell. I try to mop up the random splatters and trails left behind by the squeegee with as dry a mop as possible to avoid spreading it all around.

Bare feet + painted concrete floor + Wisk + water = HILARITY ENSUING

I come to the realization that I could, in fact, do this all night and never stop seeing suds on the floor, so I get it down to a minimal layer and throw in the mop, as it were. The bright side is, the laundry room now smells extra fresh, and the floor and the mop are now considerably cleaner than they've probably ever been. My back and legs are incredibly tired, but mostly I'm just pissed that I was robbed of quality time with Em, and many weeks' supply of a laundry detergent that was a really good deal and I happen to really like the smell of.

And they still haven't caught The Hulkipede. His reign of terror lives on.