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Show JUST STUFF BY JflN L It was an easy mistake. It was also a very stupid one, and I made It We've been getting the house ready for our big move. Knowing that I would rather move Into a nice, clean home, I've decided that I can leaVe mine in nothing less than spit-polished condition. As the stuff on a shelf gets packed, the cupboard is wiped out. When everything is moved from a room, I scrub the walls, vacuum the floors and wipe off the base boards. This weekend we cleaned out the stuff in the downstairs bathroom. We don't use It much so the packing was an easy task. When we finished, Kraig went out to tackle the garage and I decided to tackle the cleaning. A quick wipe down was all the walls would need and then it wouldn't take much to get the sink and potty polished into pristine porcelain purity. The shower was another story. Hard water spots and other droplet marks decorated the walls and faucets, while gunk stained the grouting. I knew that Lime Away worked wonders on hard water spots and had heard somewhere that "boy, for getting gunk out of grouting, Clorox is the only way to go," and that's where my trouble started. I figured if a little Lime Away was good all by Itself, and a little Clorox was good all by itself, a lot of each together, would be great. 1 You can probably guess my dilemma, and darn near demise! I poured the Clorox, which is quite aromatic itself, on the entire shower, then started to squirt the Lime Away on the walls. Boy, I thought as my eyes started to water, this stuff sure smells bad. I only had part of one wall covered when I had to leave the room for a breath of fresh air. The thought of chlorine gas never entered my mind, I Just assumed it was strong smelling stuff. I filled my lungs with fresh air and returned to my soon to be shining shower. By the time I had conquered another wall my eyes were streaming, my lungs were burning and it was all I could do to breathe. Thinking I had best rinse off what I had started, I turned on the hot water and dashed out of the room. I collapsed in a hacking heap on the stairs. Kraig heard my coughs and came running. "What's wrong?" he asked before the strong smelling stuff tickled his nose. "I was just cleaning the shower," I gasped. Well, he took a few steps towards the bathroom door, which by now was filled with steam and the wonderful scent that I had concocted, saw the empty Lime Away and Clorox bottles and knew exactly what had happened. As I struggled to breathe, he told me how fatal what I had just done could be. And, sure enough, right there on both bottles it says "Do Not Mix With Toilet Bowl Cleaner" and "Do Not Mix With Any Other Cleaners Especially Not Bleach!" Needless to say I have learned my learned my lesson. I now read even the labels of my Campbell's soups before I mix them together for fear of creating some noxious gas. So heed my warning if you're doing any heavy duty cleaning, working with poisons or anything that smells bad, read the labels and save your bartending for elsewhere don't mix! You might not live to tell the tale. |