Careful, there's a fight going on in the bathroom, and from out here in the hallway it looks as if it could get dirty. There's Mr. Clean, smiling but formidable, armed with his new MagicReach and swathed in a powerful sparkly comet of cleanliness. Better watch out, because here's another supernatural glow, and it's coming from the Clorox BathWand with its scrubby pads, ready to vaporize any sign of grime.
These boys have already killed off a few innocent letter spaces (look at how they run together, MagicReach, BathWand), and their arrival should be a caution to us all: It's spring cleaning time, and marketers and manufacturers want to persuade us that cleaning the bathroom can be made fun and easy, and all for $12.99 or less.
They want to save us from getting on our hands and knees or having to climb into the shower to reach the wall tile, and they want to soft-soap us with yet another disposable cleaning tool. What, they think we're getting old and soft?
Here's the Mr. Clean pitch: The MagicReach has a pole that extends up to four feet, attached to a head onto which you can slip either disposable tub/shower pads (which foam with cleaner when submerged in water) or floor/multipurpose pre-moistened pads. The head pivots, so you can get it behind the toilet, and you can whip it all over the bathroom in no time, staying upright and well off of your hands and knees.
The Clorox BathWand has a 23-inch handle and disposable scrubby pads loaded with Clorox cleaner to use on tub and shower. Its maker touts it as ergonomically correct, describing the handle as having the optimal length to get the necessary leverage to apply the proper scrubbing pressure and to reach hard-to-clean areas, without having to bend or stretch.
Mr. Clean talks some sobering talk in his promotional literature, pointing out that until 1980, most houses had one bathroom. Not only that, when bathrooms first came in from the back yard, they were about 60 to 80 square feet.
These days, a master bathroom is about 400 to 500 square feet and most houses have a couple of smaller ones scattered here and there. No wonder we need to throw around some magic and wave a few wands if we want to have any hope of keeping all that tile clean.
We should have expected that still more disposables would be coming our way. Only a few years ago, Mr. Clean and his cohorts at Procter & Gamble were seducing us with the Swiffer, while Clorox was pushing its ReadyMop. Then came the antibacterial wipe, ready to attack counters and sinks before being thrown away, laden with germs from our bathrooms and kitchens. According to a Soap and Detergent Association survey published in January, 66 percent of consumers have used such wipes, 80 percent of them at least once a week.
Whatever happened to recycling?
That thought led me to the OrganizedHome.com Web site, where Cynthia Townley Ewer offers recipes to make your own cleaning solutions, which you can apply with your own rags or even a sponge. At first, I was put off by the idea. Who has time for that?
Then I thought of that distant era when Martha Stewart started to penetrate the national consciousness. Women I know snickered at the idea of this super householder who could spend the morning building a cabinet, the afternoon creating an elaborate floral arrangement to put atop it and the evening regaling guests about her day over the multi-course and artfully presented meal she had just cooked for them.
They don't seem to be snickering now. They're too busy buying her magazine and listening to the buzz about her television shows. Of course they don't have time to do such time-consuming projects themselves, but they seem to like knowing that someone does. Perhaps the same holds true for homemade cleaning potions.
Ewer says she uses white vinegar to clean a bathroom. It absorbs odors, she says, and its mild acidity dissolves soap scum. She also suggests mixing one cup of white vinegar with one cup of water for use in a spray bottle to clean bathroom countertops, floors and the exterior of the toilet. To clean shower walls, she suggests heating the solution (remove the sprayer element, put the bottle in a microwave and heat until barely hot). "Spray the walls, let stand 10 to 15 minutes, then scrub and rinse," she advises.
Ewer substitutes baking soda for scouring powers, sprinkling it on a sponge to scrub bathtub rings. She offers numerous other tips on her Web site, including how to make your own cleaning wipes. First step: Drill a hole in the top of a food storage container. (Martha would love it.)
Help me out here. My drill is out of commission.
Waving a magic wand around the bathroom sorely tempts me, but the back of my mind is haunted by all the articles I've read telling me what good exercise I can get cleaning the house.
Will yet another time- and movement-saving device be bad for my health? Shouldn't I be trying to burn 200 calories an hour with the bending and stretching that some vigorous cleaning provides?
Wait a minute, Mr. Clean is shouting at me from the bathroom. Get real, he's telling me. Do you really want to do deep knee bends over the bathroom floor? The Clorox BathWand is waving, clamoring about all the aches and pains I can avoid, if only I would listen.
Okay, okay, I give up. It's springtime, and I'm tired of all the commercial messages. I'm raising the white flag of truce -- one of my husband's worn out T-shirts from the rag bag. And as soon as it quiets down in the bathroom, I'm going to take that T-shirt and use it the old-fashioned way, dipping it in a soapy pail and scrubbing the bathroom floor.
