Sink Patrol

If such a thing is possible, my posting may be even lighter than normal for the next few days. Mary from No Polar Coordinates will be arriving shortly to stay with us for a few days. As I write this she is barreling down the Thruway, hopefully clear of the fog that obscured the highway earlier in her journey.

I have violated the universal code of hospitality. Basic etiquette dictates cleaning the house when expecting company, and I did engage in this ritual. My breach of propriety is due to procrastination. I cleaned the upstairs bathroom today, this afternoon in fact. For shame. A guest should never be able to detect that cleaning has just occurred. The idea is to make things appear that they are always clean. I cannot smell any chemicals myself, but I was immersed in them for over an hour this afternoon, so my sense of smell is completely unreliable at this point.

Why yes, I did say over an hour. Why yes, that does seem excessive. I am beginning to think I am extremely inefficient at this whole bathroom cleaning business. My bathroom is average size, with ordinary fixtures. Except that damn sink! I’m growing to loathe the thing, more and more each time I try to clean it. So I will dispense with some unsolicited advice: never ever ever buy a pedestal sink. Mine looks much like this:


I did not select the sink; it was already here when we bought the house. It is attractive, and clearly relatively new. The whole bathroom appears to have been remodeled sometime in the last five years. Aesthetics are not the problem. But, it sucks to clean like nobody’s business. All those exposed surfaces, ceramic ridges, water lines. Ugh. If you simply must have one, do yourself a huge favor and consider one with a simpler design, at the very least one without ridges on the stem.