Tuesday, December 9, 2008

How NOT to Get Clean During the Holidays

Yesterday, I was brainstorming ideas for a blog post relevant to the holidays. Tossing around the words holidays, Christmas, clean, and soaps in the ole noggin recalled a childhood event I thought would be great to share.  My company's tag line is Getting Clean Never Looked So Good but I am going to explain how one day getting clean never looked so BAD.

One year, my parents decided to have Christmas dinner at our house and Christmas fell on my week to wash the dishes. Not a good thing at all since I have a really big family. I begged and pleaded with my parents to let me use the dishwasher which we NEVER used ever. In our house, the children were the dishwashers and the appliance itself was purely for decoration. Although they said no several times at first, they finally gave in after our family left that evening leaving dirty dishes in the sink, the family room, and the dining room.

I was as thrilled as I could be until I realized, I didn't know how to use the dishwasher! Upon figuring out what buttons to press, I loaded the dishwasher with all the dirty dishes that would fit, poured Joy dishwashing liquid into the dispenser, closed the dishwasher door, and turned it on.

I skipped away to my bedroom when all of a sudden I heard, "Lisa!" in only the tone of voice you knew meant trouble.  I ran back to the kitchen with my sisters following to find my father standing in the kitchen with soap suds pouring out of the dishwasher all across the kitchen floor.

Arlo & Janis

That day I learned there IS a difference between dishwashing liquid for the sink and dishwashing detergent for the dishwasher. My work load TRIPLED. Since we could not figure out how to stop the dishwasher, the entire time it was running, I had to stay in the kitchen with a mop to soak up the suds and water to keep the water and suds from reaching the carpeted rooms surrounding the kitchen. Basically, the kitchen floor ended up being mopped for about 3-4 hours until I got it completely dry.

And that ladies and gentleman is how NOT to get clean during the holidays.

Do you have a funny holiday story?  We'd love to hear it.  Please share in the comments.  Thanks!

11 comments:

Melissa B. said...

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Anonymous said...

Oh my goodnes, Lisa! What an ordeal. If that would have been me, I'd probably never have washed a floor again. I don't think any of my holiday stories can match that. ;-)

Aly @ Lip Zip said...

I don't have a holiday story that could top that. What a memory!

fatfighter said...

OMG, you poor thing! But you laugh about it now, right? Sounds like one of those stories that will get told over and over at family gatherings. We all have a few of those... :)

Lisa @ Serah's said...

Thanks to everyone for leaving comments. Yes I laugh about it now. I don't really know if my parents remember since they sat in the family room watching TV while I slaved with that mop in the kitchen. It was tragic enough for me to always remember. LOL

MaricrisG said...

HA HA! that is so funny! and only because I did the same thing! Mine was that I put in waaaayyyy too much dishwasher liquid! Good thing hubby was there to the rescue! I had suds all over the kitchen floor and we were living at an apartment then! Just imagine my horror knowing I'll flood the neighbor below us with soap suds and all! ha!!!

Unknown said...

Aww, what a story. It has to be funny in hindsight, right? This story sounds like something out of a sitcom.

Tara Bennett said...

LOL! I totally did that once when we ran out of the regular dishwasher detergent. I thought I was being so resourceful! My mom still teases me about that one. At the time, though, she didn't think it was funny at all. =)

Anonymous said...

That is such a funny holiday story! I wish I had some to share but my family never did anything during holidays! This past few years I finally had a family (my in laws) who do a get together on christmas!

Ronnica said...

Funny story! Fortunately, I've never really had to do dishes. Wow, I sound really pretentious. I just mean that my family and now I use the dishwasher for everything. That's what it's good for!

Alicia @ Oh2122 said...

My dad did this once.

Once.

After using every towel in the house, both clean and dirty to contain the carnage, he never did it again.