Swiffer Madness

SO, the days here in Candyland have been heady with excitement. Heady, I tell you. (Please, bear in mind that excitement is subjective.)

The other day, Bug comes to tell me that "the 'nother one UPS (pronounced "ups") guy is here!!!" Puzzled, I looked out the window to see the FexEx truck at the curb and the FedEx lady knocking on my door. Still confused, I accepted the package, wondering what on earth I could have ordered & forgotten about. Me & Amazon, we're like *this* but this package was NOT from Amazon. Nor was it one of the many aprons I have "won" on eBay. (SD, you didn't just read that)

Once we got it back inside & opened all three kids were thrilled to see sticks!! coming out of the box. Someone must really love them to send them these metal sticks! And look! They snap together and can make swords! Cool!! We can be like Star Wars now and....AW, MOM!

I finally got all of the sticks! back together & showed them that it was actually the new (and improved!) Swiffer Sweeper. You would have thought it was Christmas or something. Well, no, that's not accurate. At Christmas each child gets presents of his or her own. Now, this...this was more like some cutthroat competition with the new (and improved!) Swiffer Sweeper as its prize!


Bear: Ooooooh! I wanna do the new Swiffer!

Bug: I sweep! I sweep!

SugarPlum: Mom? Can I do it? Please? You said I could, before. Remember?

(This is true. Six weeks ago, before the Pampered Chef party, I told her that she could Swiffer the floors for me if she got her room cleaned.)

So I told them that whoever picked up the most toys downstairs in the family room got to Swiffer first.

What sort of twisted, ironic world do I live in where the children are begging me to sweep the kitchen and ask for vacuum cleaners for their birthdays??

Needless to say, none of the toys were picked up. So the new (and improved!) Swiffer Sweeper was unceremoniously placed atop the extra cabinet in the kitchen as to limit access to the sticks! and was forgotten for several days.

Finally, we had several days of not sucky weather and my kitchen floor was showing the effects of children running in and out the back door eleventy thousand times. (Not at all the effects of not being mopped or barely even swept in over a month. Shut up.) It was then that I remembered the new (and improved!) Swiffer Sweeper waiting patiently up there on the top of the extra cabinet.

Whee!

The new handle is...greener and...knobbier. The wet cloth things are cool. And y'all, they have a scrubber strip. Yes, it will get the scuff marks up AND that crap that is stuck to the floor that you would otherwise have to go grab the scrubby thing out of the sink and bend over and scrub off the floor. Yes, the scrubby strip thing is very cool, except...you know how the Swiffer Sweeper's head is all swivel-ly? Which, really, is part of the appeal, right? Because then you can get into odd corners and places. Well, it's swivel-y-ness (I'm a fount of new, obnoxious words today!) makes it difficult to flip the sweeper head over to the scrubby strip part. On the box, it shows how you just tip it to the end and flip it over, but in real life? You have to flip the stick thing up and turn the head over to the scrubby strip part with your hand. But it scrubs well, whenever you need it to and you can get it flipped over.

All in all? I like the new (and improved!) Swiffer. Makes my life easier. Especially once I train the munchkins in how to use it. I also realized that I can remove one (or more) of the sticks! and make the thing shorter and more child friendly. Or more glass-in-my-kitchen friendly, depending on your point of view.

Now, if the weather would just warm up again, I could get all this laundry folded.