Home Ec, Tuesday, Period 1

[vdistinctive]

Class met in the Danger Shop today. If Eliot spent part of the class staring suspiciously into the corners, well. Last time he was in here, it was trying to kill everyone. Still, it was either this, the school's actual facilities, or his own house, and his house had people recovering in it and the using the school facilities just sounded mean. Also, the school janitor creeped him out.

Today, you see, they were learning how to clean bathrooms.

The Danger Shop set up looked rather like the hallway outside a pair of locker rooms you might find at a slightly seedy spa or gym. There were buckets, brushes, brooms, and mops along the walls, and two racks of various cleaning products opposite the locker room entrances. Inside were numerous toilet and shower stalls, as well as sinks and full size tubs. Most of it was more dingy than visibly dirty, though a few of those stalls were downright disgusting.

What fun would it be if he didn't give them a challenge?

"Right." He clapped his hands once and nodded to a full stock of supplies in the corner. "Cleaning. 'Round here you probably have to clean up after yourselves at least a little in the dorms, in your rooms and in the common room, if you don't want to be known as the asshole who left week-old chicken alfredo in the bottom of the sink. But I'm pretty sure you're not cleanin' out your own bathrooms in there. If you end up livin' alone, you can get away with wallowin' in your own filth a little, but I promise you, even the dirtiest among ya will reach a point where you don't even want to look at your own shower. And then you're gonna want to at least be familiar with what you can and can't throw on it without poisoning yourself."

He pulled out a stack of handouts. "So we'll start there, shall we? Here's a list of cleaning combinations to avoid. Number 2 is arguable. You're not going to hurt anything by mixing baking soda and vinegar, unless you're tryin' to pack 'em into a closed container. In some cases, like unclogging a drain, the bubblin' action they mention there is actually what you're going for. But in most cases, you're just gonna be wasting your time with those two in combination." Eliot pointed out the last paragraph on the handouts. "I want y'all to especially remember this bit: bleach doesn't go with anything. Seriously. It barely even goes with bleach. If you're gonna use it, water it way down, and make sure you rinse it off completely. Best case scenario if you don't is weird spots on your clothes. Worst case . . . well. Poison gas ain't any fun."

Eliot nodded to the two entrances behind him. "That's why we've got two bathrooms goin' over here. This one," he pointed to the bathroom on the left, which had a big B on the wall over the entrance. "Is the bleach room. There's instructions in there on how to best use it. This one," he pointed to the one on the right, which had a G over the entrance, "is for the interent's favorite 'green' cleaning products. Again, there are instructions to follow inside." He held up a hand. "In both cases, the thing that's really going to get these places nice and clean is elbow grease." A beat. "By which I mean hard, repetitive scrubbing and work, not, like, an actual grease that comes from or is used on human elbows."

Things he'd never thought he'd have to explain. This school.

"So pick a side, grab some supplies, and get to work. I wanna be able to see our faces in that tile by the time you're done."

Comments

Sign in

[vdistinctive]

Well scrubbed

RE: Sign in

[omgnochecksyet]

Eric Bittle

Re: Sign in

[era_two_triangle]

Peridot

Re: Sign in

[that_oldsaying]

Alluka Zoldyck

Re: Sign in

[boneyard_girl]

Ada Miller

Re: Sign in

[crimson_sister]

Lucille Sharpe

Re: Sign in

[hexentotchen.livejournal.com]

Hanna Heller

Re: Sign in

[notamascot]

Kaylin Neya

Listen to the lecture

[vdistinctive]

Try not to say anything about how your teacher has basically just taught you how to make poison gas.

Get cleaning

[vdistinctive]

Scrub a dub dub. Bleach it out or use 'natural' cleaning products. Also scrub brushes. There is no escaping the scrub brush.

Re: Get cleaning

[era_two_triangle]

Yeah, it wasn't like Peridot really had anything to fear from any of the cleaning supplies, so she was headed directly for the bleach room, mostly out of curiosity, armed with a mop.

Which she was holding upside-down.

Look, what she was lacking in knowhow, she made up for in enthusiasm.

Re: Get cleaning

[crimson_sister]

"Perhaps turning the mop the other way would be helpful," Lucille suggested, as she was on her way to the same room. Perhaps helping Peridot would enable her to avoid doing too much cleaning herself.

Re: Get cleaning

[era_two_triangle]

"...What, like this?"

Yes, now Peridot was holding the mop sideways. Which was at least an improvement on upside-down, right?

Re: Get cleaning

[crimson_sister]

Had Lucille's plan not been to make Peridot do her work for her she would her eyes. Now she did her best attempt at a smile and said: "Turn it some more. The soft part should be on the floor."

Re: Get cleaning

[era_two_triangle]

"The soft part?" Peridot made a scoffing noise at that, and then shook her head. "How do you get the proper abrasive friction required in order to get anything clean if all you use is the soft part?"

It seemed pretty counter-intuitive to her, okay? At least sideways, there was far more surface area to scrape against the floor.

Re: Get cleaning

[crimson_sister]

Lucille wasn't very good at cleaning.

"I believe these modern liquids dissolve things. Otherwise perhaps brushes are useful."

She had seen the maid scrubbing the floors.

Re: Get cleaning

[era_two_triangle]

There was a long pause before Peridot looked back toward the cleaning supplies.

"... Which one is a brushes?"

It's okay, Lucille. She was almost certainly worse at this than you.

Re: Get cleaning

[crimson_sister]

Lucille pointed. "The one with the stiff bristles."

Was that helpful, Peridot?

Re: Get cleaning

[era_two_triangle]

... Ish.

"What's a bristle?"

Re: Get cleaning

[crimson_sister]

Lucille picked up a brush an offered it to Peridot, deciding that it would be less effort than trying to explain.

"The bristles brush against the surface removing the dirt."

Please scrub the floor for Lucille, Peridot.

Re: Get cleaning

[boneyard_girl]

Ada hated bleach. She'd be headed to the natural products, thanks, and hoping that there were thick rubber cleaning gloves she could use.

Re: Get cleaning

[crimson_sister]

Poison gas? Lucille was heading to the bleach room. Perhaps this would even make the task interesting.

Re: Get cleaning

[notamascot]

Cleaning. Really.

Kaylin sighed and looked at the implements set out for use. She hadn't understood most of the whole explanation about the types of products - well, she knew what vinegar was and she knew what the color green was, though why you would clean with green colored products was beyond her. Wouldn't it turn things a strange color?

Eliot would be very lucky if she didn't accidentally produce poison gas given her utter lack of cleaning experience with anything beyond soap and water and her reading issues.

Talk to Eliot

[vdistinctive]

He's also totally not going to point out the part where he basically just gave you a bunch of recipes for poison gas

OOC

[vdistinctive]

This week's class is brought you by a mun who has been extremely lazy about cleaning her own bathroom this winter, and as such has maybe taken to showering in the dark.