Swiffer Sweeper w/ Wet Mopping Cloths

Swiffer Sweeper 2 in 1 Mop and Broom Floor Cleaner Starter Kit:  One of the best parts about the book Brandwashed was a discussion of how the Swiffer came to be and how mopping in general is just a poorly executed chore.  The gist is that a mop is designed to grab and hold dirt.  Then once you've used it and are ready to rinse it out, you are asking the mop to do the opposite of that, i.e. - let go of the dirt.  Which it just isn't built to do.  Then you take that now dirty mop and continue to spread the dirty mop head over your floor in an attempt to "clean" it.  Thus, the Swiffer is superior in that you take the disposable cloth,  ask it to do what it was designed for (get and collect dirt), and then you throw it away.  I do most of the mopping/sweeping in our house*, so I figured I would give it a try.  Result?  The wet cloths come out of the package really really wet.  Thus the first six square feet or so that you clean end up really really wet (and clean).  The next six square feet or so end up fairly wet (and clean).  After that everything ends up streaked with wet (and not so clean).  However, if you supplement with a spray cleaner (I used Orange-Glo) it does a grand job.  Also not having to spend time futilely trying to clean a mop head means that whole thing took a lot less time.  All of this leads me to conclude two things.  First, the Swiffer people are right, regular mopping is counter-intuitive.  Second, I shouldn't have been so cheap and should have bought the Swiffer Wet Jet to begin with.

Swiffer Sweeper w/ Wet Mopping Cloths: B

* - This is mainly because the Pook is horrid at it, but don't tell her.

Home Depot

Home Depot: Home Depot is pretty awesome.  It's chock full of stuff that you may or may not actually be able to do, but it's okay they're keen for you to give it a try.  Need an arc welder?  They've got that and they'll sell it to you too.  What's that you say?  You've never used an arc welder before and have no idea what your doing?  No problem.  They take cash or credit cards.  Actually I'm pretty handy myself.  Not in a Cliff Huxtable-think I'm handy but I'm actually not way, but actually handy.  I'm pretty sure it's genetic.  My dad is an honest-to-God handy-man.  If it's in Home Depot, he's either used it before or would have no problem using it now.  When something goes kaflooey in our house and I've no idea how to fix it, I just call dad and he tells me what to do.  There's something very empowering about fixing stuff yourself.  For example, today I installed a ceiling fan, a shelf in a closet and some curtains.  Most of it was bought at HD.  And here's the best part, doing it yourself is cheaper.  Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay cheaper.  We had a light installed a few months ago and I could have done it myself except for the fact that it was at the top of our foyer which is two stories tall.  I don't own a ladder that big, so we had to hire an electrician.  It took him 20 minutes tops to set up his ladder, take out the old light and put in the new.  It cost me around $300 (and that's not counting the cost of the light).  Today I installed the ceiling fan I mentioned earlier.  That cost me about an hour of time.  I don't know about you, but I don't get paid $300 an hour, so that's a pretty good deal in my book.  In the end, I should have installed that light myself.  The ladder would have cost less than $300 and I could have bought it at Home Depot.

Home Depot: A

Mowing the Lawn

Mowing the Lawn: When I was a kid, I hated mowing the lawn.  Partly because I had bad allergies when I was younger and mowing the lawn meant spending several hours (if not a day) sneezing and wheezing.  But also because it was a big giant waste of time.  The grass was only going to grow back and you would be back there the next weekend mowing again.  Fortunately, my brothers and father picked up my slack (thanks for that).  When you are young, older folks tell you things like, "when you get your own place you'll like mowing and taking care of the yard."  When they say things like this, they are clearly deranged because this is clearly impossible.  I hate yard work.  Why should purchasing a house suddenly cause me to become stupid and like mowing?  When I first moved out on my own, I rented a house with two friends of mine.  And while renting a house had many perks, it had some negatives.  One of which was we had to mow.  I can't say that I really ever enjoyed it, but I tolerated it.  Then after I got engaged and then got married my wife and I started thinking about buying a house.  We talked about what we would want in a house and we talked about how we both hated yard work and because of this we both wanted a house with a tiny yard.  Well, time passed as it always does and we eventually got a house and somewhere in there my wife betrayed me and joined the other side.  We found the area we wanted to live in and there were lots of houses with tiny yards, but my wife picked out a house that has one of the largest yards in the subdivision.  Instead of a tiny yard, we got a medium large yard.  If that betrayal wasn't enough, then came the ultimate betrayal.  I betrayed myself!  Turns out I like mowing the yard.  It's time I get to spend by myself (with my iPod).  Sometimes I sing along to the tunes, other times I just contemplate whatever's on my mind.  But also it gives you a sense of satisfaction that just doesn't make sense.  I mean this is the same job I was doing before (at my parents house, at the two houses I rented with friends and the house we first rented after getting married), but for some reason it's significantly different.  Go figure.

Mowing the Yard (then): D+
Mowing the Yard (now): B+