On Cleaning

I recently found myself scrubbing and disinfecting a ton. Using nothing but bleach and a microfiber rag to defend against the early winter ick.

It jacked up my hands. I will admit to not using gloves in the first few go around and if you ever need a reminder that bleach is a poison (hence why it kills things) then go ahead and do that.

If my hands were a Magic card they would be something that comes into play tapped and taps for one mana of any color before you have to exile it. Pretty awful and pretty niche.

But they scaled up at the knuckles and withered away at the creases and folds so everything was in high and stark contrast across my palm. Across the lines that say how long you will live and who you will love. They still had that smooth clamminess of swimming in pool water. A dirty clean that feels slick and hollow. I hate that feeling. How some people cannot stand the word "moist?" Or "orifice." I can't stand that after swimming feeling. Irks at a guttural level.

At an older job I worked with a guy with a diamond tattooed on his forearm. "Because I'm as solid as a rock!"

And his hands looked the same except bigger and cracked at the fingertips. From slamming pallets and boxes around with no gloves 7 hours a day. The kind of hands that you see before one of those "Working Hands" cream commercials. Then a star edit wipe to smoothness.

All that cleaning reminds me of scrubbing the screen windows in PR. Mami would pluck them down off the turnkey latches by the metal shutters. And we would toss them on the back patio and scrub with the hose, liberal application of Mr. Clean and a plastic broom saved just for washing the screen windows.

Washing to concrete sides of the house which my mother said would get green with mold if we didn't do this. "Go up on the roof and wash off the parapet. I can seen the black mold" Clean the white walls of the alley by the house where we kept trash. I would splash the Clorox (Note any bleach is ALWAYS called Clorox in PR regardless of the brand) onto the wall and the blast with the house scouring away the unseen filth and scaling the grass pushing up from the cracks in the concrete.

Or of washing the old family car a black Peugeot. I think the only damn Peugeot on the whole island of PR that no one could fix. Washing the car with great big pours of Mr. Turtle soap into a bucket and wiping down the Peugeot with random bits of cloth. Old underpants my mom saved. Never hers but sometimes my dad's from after he passed away. Or mine. Which I don't know if that is any better but no one seemed to question it. In Puerto Rico you wash screen windows and save old tighty whities to use as rags. This is how it is done con pura cepa. 

In the old car I kept a tiny tube of lotion. Something cheap from the impulse buys. But in my new car I run lean. Space program lean where every bit of weight matters. "Do you have napkins in the car I could use," my wife once asked me. To which I said "Fuck no." I wipe down the car when I get home every night. "Yes....I know," she retorted.

But I wish I had that lotion recently. I asked some coworkers who were kind enough to share but it opened myself up to quick ribbings. Softball setups for jokes. "Beat the meat?"

"No, never at work."

"Never at work......?!"

"Not, even when I work from home! Professionals have standards!"

I think I turned it around.