Friday, April 23, 2010

Cleaning...naturally

Greetings!
I've decided to mimic a very dear friend of mine. In order to exercise my atrophied writing chops, I've decided to plunge, headfirst, into the sphere of blogo. There is an above average chance that this will be a brief dalliance and my only entry. There is an even greater chance that I will attempt to write another entry but will forget my user name and password to this site and will just quit writing altogether.

But enough excuses...onward we press!

In the wake of "Earth Day," I thought it appropriate to discuss being friendly to nature. In having recently purchased a home that was a "short-sale"(a nice way of saying it was filled with roaches and the smell of feet), I've been spending a disproportionate amount of time at the local home repair store. In my wanderings through the countless aisles, I've noticed a rather sizable variety of "earth friendly" cleaning products. The front of the labels indicate that they are made entirely from "plant and mineral" products and are, hence, "friendly" with the environment (an appropriate kind of "friendly," I assure you).

At first glance, I thought, "Oh how nice! A product that solves my dilemma of choosing between my hatred of dirt and my love of nature!"

Normally, my thought process ends after the first thought that I have, and I move happily on to the next, entirely unrelated thought. In this instance, however, there was a glitch in the Matrix and I looked at the cleaning solution again. As I looked at the bottle, I realized that I would be using dirt (mineral) and that which lives in dirt (plants) to attempt to rid my house of dirt and whatever was causing that foot-like odor (probably plants).

My thought process having been stimulated, I continued down the rabbit hole. Humanity, in the year 2010 is beginning to realize that we've had it wrong for the last clip. Everything that we thought was "progress" was actually killing the earth. Cars, factories, computers, Cheese Puffs...all crimes against the very environment that sustains us. Heck, even the gas that we breath when we exhale has been labeled a pollutant by the EPA. Our very existence brings irreparable damage to the environment, we are told. To try to reverse this damage, we must revert back to when we lived in caves/trees and cleaned our earthen vessels by smearing them with dirt and rinsing them out.

Here I was, numb-skull that I am, thinking that I needed to purchase chemicals in order to kill the dirt and plants that were living in my bathtub, toilet and on my counter top (it was really dirty). As it turns out, all I had to do was buy a bottle of liquid dirt. I blame my ignorance on my high-school chemistry teacher. He was bad. Bad enough that he had to curve our grades to the point that the 38% that I got on my final exam was graded a "C." I guess I should thank him. I'd probably still be in the 10th grade if not for that curve.

But I digress. I was standing in the store, holding this "earth-friendly" cleaning solution...and it became the cryptex from The DaVinci Code. I saw the entire history of cleaning products, suspended in the air and illuminated before me:

Cleaning logic began simply: "If unwanted dirt and plants (nature) are growing in my home, I will use an unnatural chemical to kill it! I will buy bleach and acid!"

All well and good, until...

The scene shifted to the present where we have realized that the manufacturing and usage of these chemicals is harmful to the environment. Our current logic is: "I love the environment! If unwanted dirt and plants are in my home, I will use plants and dirt that have been processed into a clear liquid to clean it! Excelsior!"

And then, I saw the future. Fast forward 5 years, to just after Al Gore makes his next Nobel Peace Prize winning documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth 2: Inconvenienter!" Nature has given us the blueprint and I will reveal the next line of cleaning products, soon to be found in stores around the world (netting me a tidy profit, I might add!). No processing of any kind. I am proud to bring you:

"Nate's Natural Cleaning Products: Nature in a Can!"

"Vultures: In a Can!:"
Have unwanted animal carcasses lying around your house? Forget using glacier-melting plastic gloves and baby-seal-killing disinfectants! Sprinkle 3 tablespoons of "Vultures" directly onto the unwanted debris and watch as it disappears before your eyes! "Vultures" come with razor sharp beaks and a lust for decaying flesh, making them the only choice for your carcass-removing needs!

"Opossums: In a Can!"
Hate taking out the trash? Does your back ACHE every time you bend down to empty a garbage can? Not anymore, with "Opossums: In a Can!" Apply a liberal helping of "Opossums: In a Can!" directly onto your undesired refuse! Watch with amazement as "Opossums: In a Can!" gobbles up every last piece of garbage and then glares at you with scary, reflective eyes...hungry for more! "Opossums: In a Can!" is the solution to your refuse-disposal needs!

"Fungi: In a Can!:"
Do you hate doing the dishes after a meal? Are your plates covered in gooey food residue? Don't murder mother earth by using harmful soaps! Don't cause bowling-ball-sized-hail-storms by using plastic gloves that will sit in a landfill for the next 10,000 years! Apply "Fugi: In a Can!" directly to your plates and watch the magic begin! After 3-6 short months, the fugi will decompose all of that unwanted food and your plates will be as good as new! "Fungi: In a Can!" is the only choice for your dish-washing needs!"

Suffice to say, I expect to be extremely wealthy within the next 5 years or so...so even if you hated this first blog entry, I recommend you try to stay on my good side. Otherwise you may find yourself having a closer-than-desired encounter with some "Vultures: In a Can!"

And that, my friends, is the stuff of life.

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