Out With the Old

Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it. Proverbs 22:6

Old habits die hard. We grew up being told that you had to:

1. Have a clean house to welcome the new year.
2. That whatever you were doing on New Year's Day is what you'd be doing for the rest of the year. I 'll be working.
3. You must have pork, black-eyed peas, and greens (for wealth, of course).
   

Any of these sound familiar? To that end, on New Year's Eve, I'm dumping trash. Now, before you get excited, there will be no wholesale cleaning here but I'm going to make the effort to unload some junk. Key word: effort. And I will make the effort to have black-eyed peas, greens, and some type of pork for dinner when I come in from work on New Year's Day.

Now, you'd think that working for the store that has everything, I would have picked up the fixings when I left last night. NOT! The cold and the after-effects of my self-medication had me under the weather. And after spending two hours on KP duty in the break room, I was not in the mood to shop for anything.

KP duty, you ask? I was given the assignment of cleaning the microwaves, refrigerators, coffee pot, etc. Now, many months ago when it was brought up, I asked why wasn't that a maintenance issue; if they swept the break room, shouldn't they wash down the tables, etc.? I know, it's that office mentality vs. retail mentality. Anyway, Nemesis piped up with the fact that they had so much to do; that she would often come in early and clean the area. I don't know about you, boys and girls, but I believe that you should wipe up your spills, clean your dishes, empty your trash. If any of us had maid service at home, we wouldn't be working for Walmart. But back to the point. I knew that I was being tested. No big deal...but I wasn't washing anybody's dishes.

Let me start with the coffee pot. You know that I drink a pot a day. But I can't drink out that pot; you can't even see the coffee. I guess they go with the theory that hot water kills germs. I'd offered to clean it if they supplied bleach or Bar Keeper's Friend, something, anything to take the stain out. No go. Finally, yesterday, I brought in a small amount of bleach, set the pot to soak, and someone threw it out and made coffee. I went back later in the evening and tried soaking the pot again; same result. When I returned from lunch, on Wednesday, to begin cleaning, I brought my own Bar Keeper's Friend and set it to soak, again.

My thought is: if you want your place cleaned, then you need to provide the supplies. No bleach, no dish detergent, no scrubbing pad (and the refrigerators and microwaves needed serious scrubbing), no nothing but paper towels. Off to the maintenance room and grabbed the disinfectant used in the bathrooms. Made liberal use of it. Told the assist. mgr., I needed a scrubber--to store claim one for use--and detergent. Can't do that but he gave me a piece of the scrubber pad used on the floor cleaners. No problem; it did the trick. So did the disinfectant.

Everything went into the trash--every dish, spoon, bowl, cup, left in the sink and any food left in the refrigerators. My own kitchen needs a thorough clean and I'm standing in here cleaning up behind grown-ass men and women? Pulleeze! "Don't throw out the condiments." "That's somebody's sandwich (it was a loaf of bread)." "Don't throw out the sodas." Get a grip. There was a sign on each refrigerator telling them that everything would be thrown out on Saturday past, which I did, and then you reload it with **** that you should take home when you leave? A half gallon of milk? I don't need to tell you that those appliances were highly-sanitized. And the coffee pot? Not as clean as it should have been but about 4 shades lighter--you can now see the water line. LOL! And, I don't have to tell you about my face, do I? Especially when a nail broke down to the quick? Pulleeze!

Switching to politics for a moment. The governor of Illinois is under fire for a lot of things but a lot has been made of his hair. Took a good look at him this morning. Jack Lord, of Hawaii 5-0 fame, was considered a "hunk" and they look alike to me. What about you?



I'll be back later. Stay safe.