Laundry-Gate

After today, I learned that Baby X's little experiment with his shampoo bottle last week was merely practice for the Stupid Thing I Did, Weekend Edition. I had a fight with my laundry room. The laundry room won.

When Mr X built the laundry room, he put a little shelf above the washer and dryer. I use it for the detergent, fabric softener, dryer sheets, baby detergent, woolite, stain remover, bleach pen, rags, dusters.... basic laundry things and a few cleaning supplies I use often. The shelf runs the entire length of the washer and dryer. Except that it isn't one long board. It's 2. And the brackets that support it? They aren't centered. It's never been a problem before today.

I've always left the caps off or loose on the bottles because laundry has to get done at lightening speed here. I have 1 minute and 24 seconds while Girl X plays with Baby X before school to sort, wash and start the dryer. Then he notices I am not in the room and decides that he can not live another second without me (even though he just spent the last 7 minutes ignoring my pleas to play) and begins screaming and beating his sister.

Point is, I do not have time for caps. I laugh at caps. Ha!

Today they laughed at me.

I started the wash and set the brand new, nearly full, 1.36 gallons of All back on the shelf exactly where it had been sitting for 3 days.

And the shelf had had enough of my arrogance and tipped.

Bottles went flying, soap! Everywhere! My hair! The walls! Yeah, EVERYWHERE!

"AARRAACCKKKK!!!"

Soap. Me. Ack.

The only thing I can be really relieved about, is that it wasn't a school day. Because I would have been thoroughly screwed.

And of course most of the bottles went flying behind the washer and dryer. I had to pull them out to clean it up, which, the All? Was being carefully held up because it had gotten stuck between the washer and the wall so really the spill wouldn't have been too bad.

It wouldn't have been too bad if I HAD KNOWN THAT BEFORE I MOVED THE DAMN WASHER!

The walls were covered in sticky blue soap. The floor was a mix of blue, green and clear and their were dryer sheets floating everywhere. Damn 240 count box.
And I thought the shampoo was difficult to clean up? Ha!
The shelf chose that moment to right itself. It was mocking me. MOCKING me!! It was as if it was saying "You dared to attempt to defy the laws of gravity! Suffer the consequences! Fool!"
Soap is sticky.
I figured the best way to clean this was not going to be paper towels. I won't need to pour any detergent for awhile. I'll simply use one of the 8 towels it took me to wipe up all that soap.
Then I had to get a wet cloth and try to scrub down the walls and get rid of the sticky. It took just the other side of forever.
So now, all caps are tightly twisted on the bottles. The heaviest ones are balanced safely where it can't tip. My laundry room smells disgustingly good.
And I will forever deny this moment when Mr X brings it up over the next several years.