Housekeeping Hints: The many virtues of the damp mop

Dear dear readers, you'll just have to bear with me on this post. Chez Vel-DuRay was thrown open for the hordes last night, and many a weaving figure was seen on the terrace. I was one of them, and I am paying for it this morning. Nothing horrible, just a touch of That Old Feeling.

But life goes on, as does housekeeping. In fact, housekeeping looms large on mornings after a party. There's lots of things that simply must be done, and simply no interest in doing them.

But we do, don't we? We empty the ashtrays and take out the trash, and we have our little machines that generally make things less grim. But one of the best things, is one of the oldest, and one of the most overlooked: The damp mop.

If you are unfortunate enough to watch daytime television, or read the "ladies" magazines, you are constantly told that you need some new product to keep your floors clean. Recently, it seems, one must invest in something called a swiffer because mops just won't work as well. We are subject to commercials where a series of mops try to win back their old "girlfriends" who have been lured away by the dashing new swiffer. (Freud could have had a field day with this, but let's not go there, shall we? Not with the way I'm feeling this morning....)

This, needless to say, if poppycock. Balderdash. Rubbish. (insert your own Victorian profanity here). A good damp mop, with plain old clean water, works wonders on your floors, as long as you do this fairly regularly, and occasionally break out the scrub brush and the soap flakes (because, grim as it is, the ugly truth is that only way to get a floor really clean is to get on your hands and knees)

Oh, and one other thing: If you need cleaning supplies, and you can't make them yourself (which is remarkably easy to do) go to the dollar store. The off brands are just as good as the grocery store stuff, and many times the packaging is much more fun (As anyone who has ever used "Kitchen Klenzer" instead of Comet can attest). I'm especially fond of something that I think is from Mexico called "Fabuloso" that smells garish, is probably horribly toxic, and retails for something like a dollar a gallon.

So during these economically strained times, do yourself a favor: Ignore the commercials. Skip over the ads. Run a damp mop over your floor, and then go out an enjoy the sunshine. Spend those dollars you would have spent on that swiffer or whatever gadget or potion they are pushing, and buy something fun with it: A terrarium, say, or perhaps some lovely gravel art.

As for little me, I always say that when the going gets tough, the tough go to Tacoma. Or back to bed. I haven't decided which option looks better to me yet.