It Was Worse Than You're Imagining

So on Saturday, Joel and I woke to the sound of a gigantic crash and breaking glass. Think, massive clap of thunder meets recycle truck within 100 yards of our house. We checked around the house, looked out all our windows, but could find no explanation for the cacophony. We figured somebody must have been doing some early morning dumpster filling out behind their house, or something, and went back to bed, mystified.

Today, I opened our basement door to find all of my canned (in glass jars) applesauce, peaches, and beets on the floor, sprawled down the basement stairs, surrounded by broken glass. Oh, and mold growing over half of the mess.

Duhhhhh, so THAT's that we heard! I bet a light bulb actually appeared over my head as the thought clicked. I've never felt so bright.

And then I closed the door and immediately began the process of repressing the knowledge of what was waiting there to be cleaned up. That kind of undertaking is not to be initiated without full husband backup, and after munchkin bedtime because who wants to spend three hours saying, "No, Mikayla, no touch! Go find your [headband, cup, phone, purse, ball, puzzle....]" while obviously the three feet behind the basement door is way more interesting than all the toys and WonderPets episodes in the world.

In God's providence, we purchased a shop vac shortly after we moved into our home about a month ago. Joel spent a solid three hours of quality time with his man machine, while I washed the remaining unbroken jars and the inside of the basement door. To our landlord, if you're reading this (and have recovered from your heart palpitations sufficiently to be reading this far), please know that the basement stairs and door have not been this clean in at least 50 years. There is nothing, neither mold nor fungus nor insect, that could have survived the scrub-down we gave those suckers.

While it was not at the top of my "Ways to Spend Wednesday Evening" list, this cleaning job was gross and backbreaking enough for us to want full credit. And everyone knows it's not official til you blog about it or post it on Facebook. So there you go. You'll have to take my word for it, though, because we did not, for some crazy reason, choose to capture the moment with Instagram.