Lessons Learned

Oh ya'll.

It was bad.

I was fixin' to clean the counter after cooking supper.
I reached under the kitchen sink and pulled out the first bottle my hands touched *thinking* it was Clorox Clean-up.

I immediately began spraying the counter when I realized, I had grabbed the Windex.

What a dork.
So I exchanged it for the Clorox and doused the counter with a healthy dose of bleach.
And began wiping it off.

But I was quickly overwhelmed by an awful smell!
And it dawned on me:  Windex contains ammonia.

In a less than stellar moment, I had just combined bleach and ammonia on my countertops.
And I was home alone.

duh. duh. duuuuuuh.  (cue creepy piano music.)

My entire life I have been told that

Bleach + Ammonia = Deadly Combination.

Literally.

So in a matter of about 0.253 seconds (an Olympic record, I'm sure), I grabbed my cell phone and raced out the front door.
I was just certain that I had breathed in deadly fumes and would be dying in a matter of moments.
(I've always had a flair for the dramatic.  ha!)

Visions of men in astonaut-like chemical suits with gas masks and oxygen tanks began filling my head.  I just knew that poison control was going to have to be called, and they would have to seal my apartment until the deadly gases could be contained and eliminated.  My face would be plastered all over the news as the girl who almost wiped out the entire apartment complex with noxious gases.  But I wasn't even going to live to see it.

With what I was sure were the last remaining breathes I would take on this planet, I called my dad to tell him of my disasterous mishap and wish him a long and happy life. 

What happened next is the kicker.  Appaling really. 

In the midst of this traumatic experience, my dad
---the man who donated half his genes to me
---who never missed a soccer game in high school
---who can fix just about anything on earth
---my hero, knight in shining armor
LAUGHED AT ME!

Can you believe it? 
He laughed at me.  His own flesh n blood.

Turns out you have to have massive quantities of ammonia and bleach to produce enough chlorine gas to be fatal.  Who knew?

After his brief interlude of laughter at my expense, he quickly dispelled my fears of dying on my front porch and told me he was quite certain I would survive.  And poison control would not have to be called.  Thus chem suit guys would not surround my apt.  And I wouldn't make the evening news.

Darn.

So I went back inside, opened windows and turned on the ceiling fan to air out the smell.
And finished cleaning the counters.

All is right in my world again.

Oh happy note, I get to use these cuh-ute gloves.  Makes cleaning super fun.

One more life lesson learned.
One more crisis solved.
All in a days work.


What lessons have YOU learned lately?