Something I don't like about Costco

I have finally found something I don't like about Costco...

...their containers of liquid laundry detergent are too big.

Now, normally this is a good thing, right? Like this morning when I pulled down a brand new bottle I was amazed and thrilled it was going to last me 180 loads...that's right. 180. That's like until the end of 2014. (The container was so big I had to really work to get it up onto the shelf where my old container was--difficult, yes. But doable.)

The real problem with Costco came when I returned home from running errands. Somehow while I was away the bottle decided to jump off the shelf, ricochet off the washer and dryer and land on its side on the ground, slowly glug-glugging liquid goo all over the pantry. By the time I came home there was 90 loads worth of Arm and Hammer Clean Burst blue detergent covering the floor.

And what do you do with 2+ quarts of slime on your floors? Well, you don't walk on it because it's slippery-er than an ice skating rink and you don't put water on it because, hello, laundry detergent = bubbles.

So this is how it went down (luckily I did not): I stood on two rags and used my dust pan and my bread scraper (the thing you use to scrape your bread dough and excess flour off your counter) to squeegy the nasty off the floor (along with whatever else was down there). What I couldn't scrape up I mopped up with dry dishtowels, all of which were thrown directly into the washer (wet ones were very ineffective)...and no I didn't add detergent.

Now I am sure my neighbors think I'm a really good housekeeper because you can smell our apartment from the front door, or so I hear because I can't really smell anything at this point--hopefully it wears off.