This Enemy Mine, I Know Him Well. Soap Scum Is His Name.

I grew up a renter. My parents have never owned their own home. Still don't. As a result we - my parents, myself and my two younger sisters - have had to move from time to time. Now, a married man myself, I carry on the proud tradition of non-home ownership. I do intend to rectify this one day but that isn't the point of this story.

While I've made it clear before how much I think moving sucks, one of the things about it that bugs me more than anything else is...

The bathrooms.

Whenever I move into a new place I always have to come to terms with having to use a shower that was once regularly used by someone else. What makes this especially weird is that I don't really consider myself a germaphobe. As guys go, I'm as disgusting as any other, and proud of it. Of course, this wouldn't really be an issue it the shower was new and untouched by human gunk. But we all know how hard to find and costly virgin bathrooms are nowadays.

That last part read back kinda weird...

Anyway, The house we just moved into is - let's just say - on the more mature side. While the landlady did redo the entire kitchen, the shower was woefully as old as the rest of the place. It may have been cleaned after the previous tenants moved out but it wasn't by me and before I considered it fit for human (or at least "my") use I had to deal with it. These are the step-by-step events that took place that day:

- Getting my self physically and mentally prepared: I start with stretching. Then I do some quick shadow-boxing (Soap scum can be aggressive, you know) and give myself a good pep-talk and promise myself a drink for after I'm done.

- I assembled all the necessary items: bleach, detergent, disinfectant cleaner, bleach, bucket, scrub brush, tile and grout cleaner, bleach (I use sulfuric acid if they'd let me).

- Briefly, I give serious consideration to making a hazmat suit from garbage bags and rubber bands. Fortunately, good sense prevailed and the idea was abandoned. That and I didn't have enough rubber bands.

- When the actual cleaning process was underway, I realized that I was starting to feel a little lightheaded. This was from the high concentration of chlorine bleach I used in the cleaning mixture I concocted. After stepping out of the shower and getting some fresh air, I added some more bleach to the mixture and pressed on.

You can see why Mrs. C prefers I clean the shower. It get's done right!

Finally, I was finished. When I was done I felt like I needed a good shower. I removed my clothing (to be taken to a local crematorium for incineration, later) and stepped in, confident that the demons were exorcised. Then I saw it. There, right in front of me, in the teeniest hairline crack that was in this one tile.

Is that a tiny... brown... smudge?