~*~ Homemaking Tip ~*~

Cleaning Your Glass Top Range
[in 21 steps -- 1 hour and 45 minutes]

1. Combine soda, borax, and grated bar soap as homemade laundry detergent.

2. If you are not assembling your laundry detergent as soon as the soap is grated, hide it deep in a closet, so your adolescent son won't spy it on the countertop, think it's mozzarella cheese, ram a big pinch of it into his mouth, and be pretty bummed.

3. Wash two loads of laundry with the homemade laundry detergent. (Load #2 is washed with said detergent to convince yourself those really were little balls of bar soap stuck all over your clothes in load #1.)

4. Place the homemade laundry detergent on a shelf in the laundry room, while you hope your next brainstorm will incorporate the mixture and be successful.

5. Continue brainstorming for 2 or 3 weeks, until such time as you discover you're selling your house and moving. Stop brainstorming about wasted soap -- you're gonna be busy for a while.

6. [One year later] Read online a recipe for liquid laundry detergent, learning that you can add water to your dry, homemade laundry detergent, boil it for 10 minutes, and it will be liquid laundry detergent. Presto-Chango, soap globs all gone!

7. Fill a large stock pot half full of water; add your homemade laundry detergent.

8. Place stock pot on your glass top range and turn on the heat.

9. Use this cooking time to run around the corner and answer just that one little email you haven't gotten to yet.

10. When you've been subconsciously wondering for about 4 minutes what that lovely, floral scent is wafting through the house, think to yourself, "Oh, I bet my liquid laundry detergent has been cooking for 10 minutes now and is done."

11. Get a large bath towel to soak up the large snowy lake in front of the range, on the hardwood floor; toss wet towel with undissolved soap globules onto the laundry room floor.


12. When you see how little this accomplished, pray that your male-type housemates won't soon come back from the pasture, exclaiming as they trickle in, "WHAT DID YOU DO!?" "WHAT DID SHE DO!?" and "WHAT HAPPENED!?" You'll be heavily perspiring by now and won't be in the mood to answer questions.

13. Continue your ministrations to the floor, until you can approach the cabinetry without sliding through the soap and tracking it back to the sink. This step must also include a broom and dustpan to sweep up the grated soap, which would apparently survive intact a flood of Noahic proportions.


14. When the floor can be traversed safely, sit on it while you begin to wipe the soap globs and crystallized borax and soda from the tops, bottoms, fronts, insides, handles, and hinges of 4 drawers and 2 cabinets. Do not concern yourself if the floor is still wet -- by this time, you couldn't care less what happens to your clothes. Think, "Buffing. I'm buffing."



15. Repeat step #14 eight or nine times, until the surfaces no longer dry to a telltale, chalky white. This becomes harder to perceive, as the factory finish begins disappearing from your cabinetry.

16. Now you can begin working with the slimy, frothy lake covering your glass top range and countertop. Move the canisters to the countertop at the other side of the kitchen, and decide right now that you'll chink the mixture off of them tomorrow, because you might be tempted to throw them in the trash an hour later, if you haven't already given yourself permission to postpone this part.


17. Use the cheap paper towels kept under the sink to begin mopping liquids from your range and countertop. This is not a job for the costlier select-a-size towels, for you'll be selecting GIANT and many.

18. When the liquids are mopped up, you will discover your range top is now covered with a thick, dry, crystallized film. Use a wooden spatula, plastic scraper, razor blade, dish scrubby, and terry dishcloth to scrape, scrub, and wipe the soap from your range top.

19. Repeat step #18 ten or eleven times and follow with the manufacturer's recommended range top polish.



20. Throw yourself on the sofa.



21. When you have recovered, and adolescent male-figure points to the glistening, crystalline glaze on the countertop and asks, "What's this," say, "This is a special night in the kitchen. It's countertop bling."

But I say unto you which hear, Love your enemies, do good to them which hate you, Bless them that curse you, and pray for them which despitefully use you. And unto him that smiteth thee on the one cheek offer also the other; and him that taketh away thy cloke forbid not to take thy coat also. Give to every man that asketh of thee; and of him that taketh away thy goods ask them not again. ~Luke 6:27-30