I made a discovery this week. A rather unwanted one, but a discovery none the less. My discovery was of the olfactory sort. I discovered the source of a smell that had been offending my olfactory sensors for some time.
Being an at-home dad, I have many tasks which would be foreign to many if not most away-from-home-for-most-of-the-day dads. One of these is administrator of kitchen custodial care. I use the term, "administrator," loosely. I'm really a one man show, administrating no one but me.
So when the dirty dish piles reach upward to touch the bottom of the overhead cabinets, it is my responsibility to clean. I do this with great vigor and with the assistance of numerous friends, not the least of which is my favorite: the dishwasher.
DW (as I refer to him) and I have tried many types of dishwasher soaps. We've tried granules and we've tried liquid gels. We've tried a variety of brands as well. We keep coming back to one product after each careful cost/performance analysis: Walmart's "Great Value Fresh Scent Dishwasher Powder with Grease Fighting Action".
Now let me state two things before I go any further. I would rather spend an hour with a Kirby vacuum salesman than 10 minutes inside a Walmart. I don't like what they are doing to America, and I don't like spending a cent in their stores. So I have Lisa do it.
Secondly, I wholeheartedly agree that they need to come up with a better and shorter name for their dish washing detergent.
Anywho, I have used this product for a number of years. Recently, they changed the smell that the detergent produces while cleaning the dishes. One night as I was sitting in the kitchen sorting my music lists on my laptop and while DW was purring away cleaning a heavier than normal load of dishes, I began to notice a strange odor. It wasn't pleasant. It didn't strike me as "fresh." Not believing it possible, it took me a number of minutes to sniff the entire kitchen before I confirmed with certainty that the odor was coming from DW.
I found the smell completely offensive. It reminded me of something but I couldn't put my finger on what it was. This continued for a number of weeks. I even switched to a different brand to use when I knew the kitchen would be inhabited. It got to the point that the only time that I would use Walmart's "Great Value Fresh Scent Dishwasher Powder with Grease Fighting Action," was when I started a load right before going to bed.
This week I was in Spring Green and had to stop at the truck stop there to, uh, er, well... make a pit stop. At the bottom of the urinal was one of those pink, hockey puck-looking things that they call a "urinal cake". I'm not making this up. They actually call them urinal cakes. Why, in God's name, I have no idea.
Standing there I began to notice a familiar but unpleasant odor. "EUREKA!" I cried out loud (okay, it wasn't eureka. It started with "Holy" and ended with something I won't post here.) "That's it!" Walmart's "Great Value Fresh Scent Dishwasher Powder with Grease Fighting Action," makes my kitchen smell like a truck stop urinal!
As I pondered how bizarre this was, it occurred to me that this was absolutely ironically fitting. What a perfect depiction of what that company is doing to many a town in this country as more and more mom and pop shops disappear from main streets and vacant buildings become more and more common.
While the joy that follows the solving of a great mystery settled upon me, the frustration of its implications also settled in. Now I'm back square one. Now I must begin anew my search for the perfect dishwasher detergent. The only upside to this is that Lisa will now be spending less money at Walmart and that our kitchen will no longer smell like a urinal.
Being an at-home dad, I have many tasks which would be foreign to many if not most away-from-home-for-most-of-the-day dads. One of these is administrator of kitchen custodial care. I use the term, "administrator," loosely. I'm really a one man show, administrating no one but me.
So when the dirty dish piles reach upward to touch the bottom of the overhead cabinets, it is my responsibility to clean. I do this with great vigor and with the assistance of numerous friends, not the least of which is my favorite: the dishwasher.
DW (as I refer to him) and I have tried many types of dishwasher soaps. We've tried granules and we've tried liquid gels. We've tried a variety of brands as well. We keep coming back to one product after each careful cost/performance analysis: Walmart's "Great Value Fresh Scent Dishwasher Powder with Grease Fighting Action".
Now let me state two things before I go any further. I would rather spend an hour with a Kirby vacuum salesman than 10 minutes inside a Walmart. I don't like what they are doing to America, and I don't like spending a cent in their stores. So I have Lisa do it.
Secondly, I wholeheartedly agree that they need to come up with a better and shorter name for their dish washing detergent.
Anywho, I have used this product for a number of years. Recently, they changed the smell that the detergent produces while cleaning the dishes. One night as I was sitting in the kitchen sorting my music lists on my laptop and while DW was purring away cleaning a heavier than normal load of dishes, I began to notice a strange odor. It wasn't pleasant. It didn't strike me as "fresh." Not believing it possible, it took me a number of minutes to sniff the entire kitchen before I confirmed with certainty that the odor was coming from DW.
I found the smell completely offensive. It reminded me of something but I couldn't put my finger on what it was. This continued for a number of weeks. I even switched to a different brand to use when I knew the kitchen would be inhabited. It got to the point that the only time that I would use Walmart's "Great Value Fresh Scent Dishwasher Powder with Grease Fighting Action," was when I started a load right before going to bed.
This week I was in Spring Green and had to stop at the truck stop there to, uh, er, well... make a pit stop. At the bottom of the urinal was one of those pink, hockey puck-looking things that they call a "urinal cake". I'm not making this up. They actually call them urinal cakes. Why, in God's name, I have no idea.
Standing there I began to notice a familiar but unpleasant odor. "EUREKA!" I cried out loud (okay, it wasn't eureka. It started with "Holy" and ended with something I won't post here.) "That's it!" Walmart's "Great Value Fresh Scent Dishwasher Powder with Grease Fighting Action," makes my kitchen smell like a truck stop urinal!
As I pondered how bizarre this was, it occurred to me that this was absolutely ironically fitting. What a perfect depiction of what that company is doing to many a town in this country as more and more mom and pop shops disappear from main streets and vacant buildings become more and more common.
While the joy that follows the solving of a great mystery settled upon me, the frustration of its implications also settled in. Now I'm back square one. Now I must begin anew my search for the perfect dishwasher detergent. The only upside to this is that Lisa will now be spending less money at Walmart and that our kitchen will no longer smell like a urinal.
