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Thursday, Oct. 22, 2009

Contain myself? I smell a cleaning day in my future

I don’t need this much stuff,” I muttered to myself as a teetering stack of reused empty plastic feta, barbecued chicken and sliced meat containers and their lids fell over on the kitchen floor.

My comments could pertain to said containers, but I was referring to my collection of cleaners and other household products in the cabinet under the kitchen sink.

It’s ironic, too, because my kitchen as well as the rest of the house has been woefully ignored these many weeks.

I mean, really, how many variations of floor and general-purpose cleaner do I need? Am I really so fickle that I have to have a lemon-scented one for sunny days? Do I have to have Lavender Breeze for those occasions when I need a mood lifter? My kitchen or bath probably doesn’t need the odor of Fresh Ocean Surf. Besides, I think we all know what a house that has undergone a real dose of “fresh ocean surf” smells like, and it ain’t pretty. It’s also not a tranquil clear bluish-green color. I apparently decided I needed to slowly develop a home cleaner fragrance wardrobe.

So there I sat, cross-legged in my rattiest sweatpants, peering at a multicolored collection of cleaning potions stuck waaaay under the sink. Another plastic lid flipped down off Mt. Container and danced along the kitchen floor on its rim, mocking me.

The need to reuse containers like that — now, I come by that trait honestly. My parents, both of them. Looking for something in the fridge when I was growing up was an adventure. Where are the leftover string beans, in the former margarine tub or in the orange Tupperware? Do we actually have any margarine? No; all those tubs hold a variety of leftovers, and we haven’t had any margarine in months because nobody thinks to buy any because they see the containers in the fridge.

It’s carried over into my home, only now, more products come in reusable containers. I sighed, grabbed the plastic containers and shoved them back under the sink.

Dealing with them could come on a day when Sunny Lemon was my scent of choice.