Explosive Soda and The Idiots Who Clean It

I tend to watch a lot of TV. Calling it watching probably isn’t right. I always have it on, like white noise for the most part, with intermittent spurts of attention. Because of the shows I choose, I am graced to be in an ad demographic of people who like the finer things. There are men’s suit retailers, paving stones for 2 acre outdoor kitchens and pools, and two German automakers. I find that last one ironic because the History Channel runs many shows about German war crimes in World War II, but we’ll take an uneasy pass on that. On certain occasions, like sick days, snow days and day-camp free days, I’m home midday with TV playing. It is then that I get a look inside the dumbest person on the planet: the vapid, apparently valium-induced, stereotyped, suburban housewife.

This smiling jackass apparently adores when her impish children shoot explosive soda bottles all over the kitchen. She’s actually dumb enough to buy bright red and orange soda in two liter bottles to equip them. Why doesn’t she just give them flamethrowers? She always lets her dog outside when it’s muddy, right after the floor is cleaned. Oddly though, the kitchen is brightly lit because it is always sunny. What are the kids running golden retrievers down Slip & Slides at a construction site? Maybe I should be impressed that her dog returns when let out unlike mine. Her floors are always bright white. It apparently never clicks in her pea-brain that she is raising reckless slobs, so she continues to buy white carpets and install white tile and grout.

Once the spill, mud, or downed-tree in the kitchen is realized, she takes just one paper towel and wipes away the hazmat incident with a sly smile and gentle sigh. A peak inside those always-clean double ovens would surely reveal a vat of Xanax. Those towels must be strong enough to clean the Gulf oil spill if just one can wipe up two liters of Hawaiian Punch. Of course, I’m forgetting she has the aid of one spray of whatever cleaner is in the bottle. Because we all just shoot one spray, and use one towel when a box of cherry Jell-O mix gets on the counter. If the now super-cut looking Mr. Clean is making her that happy, there’s more to her afternoon delight than the Magic Eraser.


Then, there’s the omnipresent idiot spouse. If these women are so smart and smug, why did they marry such morons? They couldn’t have picked a better choice for life and parenting partner? This one really gets to me because I have sons who will one day be husbands. I cringe that they may be so clueless. They are slobs now, but I am hoping they follow my husband’s lead. He cleans any slight mess ASAP, using ½ a roll of paper towels in one grab and ½ a liter of bleach cleanser. His approach is to scrub the slightest mess into oblivion. My poor dogs must have Kevlar paws to walk those floors. It is obvious I do not buy the indestructible paper towels. Self hand slap: Bad wife. Bad Mom.

As a last comment of critique, I have also noted that these women all live in the suburbs. To my city dwelling friends, kudos on not being subject to such stereotypes and whirling blenders whipping up strawberry smoothies with no lids on them. You must be bright enough to avoid these messes, or maybe you scream like banshees and therefore would not make good fodder as a calm-mom cleaning jackass.

I can not imagine how ad after ad is pitched AND green-lighted with these farces of moms at the helm. The ONLY believable part is that the kids just stand there. Mine could shatter a window and just stand there. If they spill sticky orange juice, they walk four rooms to tell me it’s spilled, as opposed to using the cleaning products they just passed.

Well, just a few more hours before I head home from the office. I’ll get home and try a preemptive strike in which I’ll make sure any product with food coloring is locked in a secure position, and an old towel is by the back door for dirty paws. I’ll leave the TV off until all single-paper-towel-wielding-idiot commercials are off the air. (They appear to end at 8pm, so the Stepford wife demographic must get tons of rest.) Then I’ll move through the house to accidents heretofore undetected, and a night of less than happy reactions to these domestic toxic adventures.