The Pooperbowl

K, that's a god-awful title, I know.

So following my entry about how good it feels to clean a place, and how fast the rewards come, I thought I'd speak about something I bought for the first time today. But first some back story. When I first moved out of my parents house and out into the wonderful world of undergrad university, I definitely had a great living experience. The first place I lived in rez actually had 1 bathroom per two people - and get this, it had a weekly maid service to keep it clean. So no worries there. Then I moved in with my sister for a year or so where most of the gritty stuff - say the toilet, or the sink, or anything like that was cleaned by her. Then when I moved into my final resting place during my undergrad, things just stayed relatively clean.

Now, before I move on, I need to make a distinction between clean and tidy. I'm a tidy person, but not a clean person. And no, I'm not talking about my personal hygiene - I'm talking about my living conditions. Tidy means organized - like the bed will be made, the books will be on the shelfs, the clean laundry will be folded, the dirty in a bin, the dishes will be put away etc. But besides dishes, and up until this year besides laundry - I was generally not a clean guy. Like all the dirt and grime that gets between nooks and crannies I'd never care about.

But here's the thing - my place that I'm living in right now is small enough and collects dirt enough that you just can't ignore it. So earlier this year, for the first time I bought Tilex to get rid of the mildew stains in my bathtub. It was quite a revelation. I mean, there was some generic bathroom cleanser left by the old tenant that I tried to use to scrub like crazy - but one spray of Tilex destoryed all the hours of effort I put in using that stupid cleanser.

Well, today, it happened again - another revelation in the world of household products. By this time, my toilet bowl was starting collect a rim of whatever and getting dirty. Boo-yeah - bought a bottle of toilet bowl cleanser, one spray and my toilet is sparkling clean. Awwww yeah.

I guess the thing is, just like exercise, when you do things right - things are a lot better. Whether or not Tilex and my Lysol Toilet Bowl cleaner are environmentally correct is a different story - but they're definitely cleanliness correct - whatever that means.

So is this just another random thought of Casey Li? Perhaps. Or perhaps it's a greater message to kids out there about to set foot out of their parents house. "It's really not that hard to stay clean". Just perhaps. Thanks for reading.