CSI: Penn State
CSI: PSU
CSI: Ariel Vincent
Whatever you want to call it. Okay, here we go. So I have friends and company coming up this weekend. I have to present a clean apartment right? Exactly. most of the apartment is empty, but that doesn't mean it's clean. But first things first - the bathroom. I've already known it, and specifically the shower, was in need of cleaning because it has been cleaned once, if that, since I cleaned it last. (You remember that chapter, right?) That was a long time ago. This just gives me that one last reason to do it right now. I can't have people thinking I'm a slob.
So I go in and gear up. Face mask on, gloves up, and I'm ready to go. (The first I went to put on two face masks by mistake, but those dollar store masks weren't having it. As a result, not one, but both of their elastics came apart. Oh well I moved on. I also should have had the forethought to take off my long sleeve shirt, or at least to wear one with sleeves that wouldn't unroll when rolled up and wrist deep in nasty. But alas, I didn't, so picture the rest of the story with sleeves that did just the opposite.)
I sprinkle on the powder and I squirt the gel, taking note of the fact that I must have used a lot during the last case because more than half of the bottle has already been used. I grab the sponge and start scrubbing. (After taking the time to remove the hair that I neglected to clean off after the first case.) I scrub it up making sure to get the sides, and not just the floor. The front left of the tub is of special concern because for some unknown reason it is visibly dirtier than the rest of the tub. In fact, it is the reason I first decided it was time to clean the tub again (those months ago.) At another part of the tub, right under the soap holder, there is a surprisingly white patch that I've noticed developing probably ever since I thought to clean the tub. I'm working from the side of the tub, and at this angle I can see something that looks interestingly enough like painter's caulk or something of the like that runs up the side of the tub from the white patch up to the soap tray. "They must have been working in here. Maybe they used something that peeled some of the paint on the tub floor. That would explain the white patch at the bottom of the strip." Mystery solved.
Hardly. After working up a good gray soap/gunk coat over the entire tub, I decide it's time to rinse. Initial sponge swipes at caulk looking substance affords me nothing, and intense scrubbing around the white patch only increase the white patches size. I spend about ten minutes removing hair and an unknown slimy gunk from the drain and the strainer like fixture. (I felt like throwing up when my fingers encountered the first few pieces of hair, even through the gloves. Ugh! I know it's not mine, and that's just nasty. But if I can dissect a frog, a sheep's eye, and a cat after skinning said cat, I should be able to remove some hair and something that is beginning to remind me more and more of fascia from the cat skinning from a drain right? So I man up and move on.) I even add some powder to the slime to make it more of a sludge which greatly helps the removal process. Not wanting to remove a layer of paint from the floor of the tub, I choose to move on with my rinse without agitating the white patch any further. I turn on the overhead shower spray and aim it to the back of the tub.
The front of the tub, with swipes of the sponge and the onslaught of flowing water quickly clears up to reveal a cleaner whiter surface. The back right of the tub seems upset with my seeming neglect and looks upon me with a now more evidently dirty (due to contrast) face. I turn off the water and liberally reapply powder and gel to the back corner. I scrub and scrub the back corner from the top of the back-o-tub slope all the way down to the aforementioned white patch located about mid tub on the right side. Not wanting to have to apply product a third time, I make sure to get the far side of the tub along this corner as well. But when I arrive at the caulk like strip this time, I find it breaks away easily under the force of the wipe.
(*?*) What the biscuit? (*?*) I look at the situation again. Let me give you all the clues I had so you have a chance to figure it out as I did. 1 - This past semester I've used bar soap the entire time, while my roommate uses body wash. 2 - Despite being the only one actually using the bar soap, my bar soap disappears surprisingly fast. 3 - I leave my bar of soap in the shower. (Rather than maybe taking it back to my room after every shower and bringing it back every shower.) 4 - The tub truly has not been cleaned in a long time. Take a second and guess at it before going on to read the conclusion.
[^!^] Ho-Ly-Shaboles! [^!^] So what's going on? Well that strip I described as a caulk like substance is actually hardened soap. That's why I was able to wipe it away with ease after the initial rinse wet it. Because my soap sits in the holder even when I'm not using it, it is exposed to the shower's spray when either my roommate or I shower. As a result, my soap grows smaller and smaller everyday due to both my use and my roommates showering. Some liquefies and flows as soapy water from the holder down the side of the tub. When the water is cut off, the portion of soapy water that has not reached the tub floor to be washed away by the last bits of water running to the front of the tub, slowly harden back into a soap residue. Shower after shower have led this residue to grow into a full blown strip of soap along the side of the tub. That's all! Well, kind of, see there one last thing - the white patch. Previously thought to be the doing of phantom bathroom workers, the true origins quickly became apparent. The white patch as I stated before lies at the bottom of what is now known to be the soap strip. It's origins have much to do with it's placement. The soap that daily traveled the strips path and managed to reach the bottom of the tub provided concentrated protection to a small area from what I like to call "Body Wash Off". When the water was turned off, the last of the bottom reaching soap was indeed washed away with the last of the water. At the same time, the cutting off of water signaled the end of the shower and a break in dumping of BWO into the shower floor environment. What this all says is probably quite clear by now. That white patch that had been "developing" for so long, hadn't been doing a thing and there was no removing of a top layer of paint. Well not "paint" per se. The tub floor was certainly coated with something that changed its color. But the change in contrast wasn't due to the white patch. It was just staying the same while everything else around it went bad. The white patch was the color everything was supposed to be.
It's like a story of how the protection of God can keep you clean even while the world around you gets dirtier and dirtier. The outsider might think there is something wrong with you because you are different, but the truth is quite the opposite - there was something wrong with everyone else!
Feel free to show this to everyone else.
My first thoughts: DUDE!...EWWWwww...Cool how you I figured that out though.
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