Recently, I was at my boyfriend’s house taking a shower. Not the easiest thing for me to do. I feel more like a rhino in an elevator bumping into all the sides (It’s a small shower). He has an automatic shower scrubber. You know, the ones that hang there and you push the button when you get out and it sprays the walls down. It seems to do a good job. I personally think doing it the old fashion way–two hands and rag–is the best, but that’s just me.

Today, we seem to be more concerned about quick and easy and not necessarily about quality. We have virtually THOUSANDS of household cleaners to make our lives easier. Drop-in and flush, foamy cleaners that does the scrubbing so you don’t have to….and automatic things that you just push the button and walk away. For a single man of 47 years of age, having a self cleaning shower seems to be the save-all-be-all of domestic responsibilities. Less time cleaning and more time fishing, hunting or other things ( like scratching one’s self in front of the TV).

I often wonder how safe these products are? Many claim to be non-toxic and environmentally safe. I got to test this out first hand, and not by choice! It was a scene right out of a Seinfeld episode. You know, the ones where “Kramer” has a shower scene. Yep , that was me!!! I drop the bottle of shampoo and it spills on the shower floor. I bend down to pick it up and on my way back up in this not-so-roomy shower, I hit my head on the scrubby-bubble shower cleaner dispenser. Down it goes into two pieces, base and bottle of cleaner. The cleaner is now spilling all over the shower floor along with the shampoo already there. I’m like, “SHIT”, there goes $10 bucks”.  So, I am slinging my foot around trying to clean up and wash down the mess. I grab up bottle of bubble cleaner and sit it up right so it stops dumping all over, hang the base back up, and close up the bottle of shampoo. With shower still running I grab up the cleaner bottle and fling it around quickly into the base. As I snap it into the place, psssstttt……it sprays full force into my eyes, nose and mouth!! Yep, I got to taste first hand bubble cleaner!! I now have my face under the shower head trying to wash all this out of my mouth and eyes. Rinse and spit, rinse and spit, cough, gag and now scrubbing tongue. I have to say that’s not so tasty stuff!!

Later that day I end up feeling really ill. It gets to a point where we call poison control to see if maybe I really was poisoned. They replied that all chemicals in there were non-toxic and to drink milk. Yeah, for a person who is lactose intolerable, that’s not gonna work.

The swishy head and yucky tummy last for several days. I even went to the doctor; she mentioned possible vertigo. She’s not thinking it’s a reaction to the cleaner. The bottom line is I felt awful for almost two weeks after the whole confrontation with bubble cleaner.

Needless to say, it’s neither tasty nor toxic; but I wonder how really necessary all these seemingly harmless cleaners are? What happen to good ol’ vinegar in a spray bottle and some elbow grease? They don’t get any more “earth friendly” or “environmentally safe” than vinegar! Vinegar is also very cheap!!

By having all these “self-cleaning” and “automatic” cleaning products, are we making it easier for a man to stay single longer? No need for a partner’s help, I have scrubby bubbles!!