It is always with the best intentions the worst work is done - Oscar Wilde

I should live by that quote.

So, I've been trying my darndest to keep my house cleaner. It's not really a New Year's Resolution . . .more like a "I'm desperately hoping to sell my house soon and it's probably going to be listed for like eight months so I'd better get into the habit of keeping it squeaky clean now so I don't run around like a crazy person trying to make it look spic and span when someone wants to come over and look at it."

Holy run-on sentence Batman!

ANYWAY, I'm trying. Harder than I've ever tried. Those of you who know me well know that I'm just not the cleanest person. I'm not grossly dirty by any means, I'm just cluttered and, well, lazy. So I like to find shortcuts so that I can spend the least amount of time with optimal results. Thus my use of the drop-in toilet cleaner tablets. I want to write an ode to them. They are FABULOUS. Always have been. I found a similar but different product that I love even more, the Kaboom! Toilet Cleaner thing (that's totally it's official name -- NOT.) You hook the sucker up to the water tubes so that every bit of water that flows into the toilet has gone through the cleaning solution. BRILLIANT I tell you! BRILLIANT!

But I digress. This is about the tablets. See, we have one toilet downstairs that the previous owners of the house (what's the mean opposite of an 'ode?' I want to write one to them because they SUCK. Seriously. We hate them.) decided not to fix when it broke. Turns out they duct taped it's internal organs together in order to facilitate not having to spend $79 on a new toilet. So this is why the toiled got a tablet, rather than a Kaboom! cleaner. I couldn't get the duct tape off to "re-wire" the tubes through the Kaboom! cleaner. Anyway, so in goes the blue tablet. I walked away proud that, at least for the next month, the inside of the toilet would remain mostly clean and I could get away with wiping off the outside and not having to super scrub the bowl.

Cut to last night, 24 hours after said "tablet" was added to the toilet.

I was in the bathroom, doing my business, and I looked down towards the floor, like you do, right? I see a fine blue mist all over the white baseboards. I investigate further. HUGE BLUE PUDDLE OF WATER BEHIND THE TOILET. Floorboards? Warped. New baseboards? Permanently blue with the "fine spray" that had somehow ejected itself from the toilet. IT WAS EVERYWHERE.

I called Matt in and we were both just staring at the toilet, baffled. There wasn't a crack . . . there wasn't a hole . . . WHERE WAS IT COMING FROM?!?!?

It took Matt about 25 minutes to find the culprit. GULP. Me. Well, sort of. Me and my shortcut stupid BLUE TABLET. It had eaten away at the already corroded (unknown to us) washer at the bottom of the tank, and VOILA! Fine spray and dripping blue water and a ruined floor to boot.

Blue tablet or not, my laziness or not, I blame the previous owners. I want to go burn a note into their front lawn. "FIX THE TOILET WHEN IT'S BROKEN. When it starts to go, duct tape is NOT THE ANSWER PEOPLE"

I also want to watch their house closely. If they ever try to sell, I'm going to ward off potential buyers with a stick. Or a broken toilet thrown at them.