Carpet cleaning

I've been told that I give the impression I'm an all-together person. I like that. Only my husband, my immediate family and my closest friends know differently.

The all-together front is my Sarah Bernhardt act. At times that falls away and my ding-bat side surfaces . . .

The Ding-Bat side reigned the day I decided to clean a portion of our carpet. Two pairs of human feet travel daily between the kitchen and den more times than I wish to count. Cleaning the area of celery green carpet had niggled at me for quite a spell.

The sun was warm and bright. I wanted to be outside digging in the dirt, but my back, that flares periodically told me not to. Clean that patch of carpet I decided.

Wavering between what I wanted to do and what I should set off the ding-bat bell.

My all-together self prepared for this chore way ahead of doing it. I'd referred to Mary Ellen's book, Best of Helpful Hints, for a simple way to brighten the area of soiled carpet without calling in professional cleaners.

Her suggestion to use cornstarch appealed to me. In preparing to tackle this chore, one day when my all togetherness was altogether I bought a box of cornstarch.

Proud of myself for thinking ahead, I transferred the white powder to a shaker canister. Didn't work. White clumps, not big ones, but big enough to bother me fell to the carpet.

I brushed the lumps with my fingers which spread the powder into long streaks. "Put it through the flour sifter" ding-bat advised.

I sifted powder from canister onto waxed paper and returned it to canister except what spilled on counter and floor. "Clean that up before you scatter it farther" all-together self said.

Following Mary Ellen's hint, I let the thick layer of cornstarch on the footprint area set for one hour.

Rather than watch the powder do whatever it was to do I went outside in the sunshine to look over where I'd dig the next chance I had.

I rolled out the Fantom vacuum cleaner. I don't like that machine at all. Sure it cleans well, but it's heavy. It roars like a locomotive and wraps its cord around my feet. The reality is, vacs and I don't get along. User friendly they are not.

Fantom sucked up the cornstarch with many forward and backward strokes. It had a brighter glow then when I started. I was pleased.

Well, ding-bat didn't think the project through like all-together self usually does.

I wheeled Fantom to the back deck, released the tube that catches everything within its grasp and saw that I HAD A MESS.

I shook the snowy powder out of the dirt container onto paper, but the majority of the cornstarch clung to the plastic inside. The powder also covered every part of the vacuum—inside, outside, in-between cracks, on the handle and extra attachments.

I stripped the machine of all detachable parts and scattered them about the deck with an assortment of cloths and brushes I'd used to clean the mess; white dust on my clothes, hands and arms, probably face and hair too. What represented a disaster area was the sight that faced my husband when he opened the door to the deck.

From my kneeling position I looked up. "Praying?" he asked.

"I'm such a ding-bat," I expounded, then prattled on how I got myself into such a predicament. He shrugged, "Should have used the vacuum with a bag," he said.

"Good advice that Mary Ellen neglected to give," I said.

Maybe bagless vacuum cleaners weren't on the market when her book was published in 1979. The bagless kind didn't come into our house until above five years ago.

"Leave it, I'll take it to the garage and clean it out with the shop vac," consoled my man of rescue.

His words transformed ding-bat instantly. She donned her Sarah Bernhardt all-together act and called the carpet-cleaning professionals. They will be here later this month.

They don't use cornstarch. They use water and a vacuum with a long hose that's hooked to their truck. The back door has to be open when they come, the reason I hadn't called them sooner.

I don't think I'll tell them about cleaning carpet with cornstarch.

I'd just as soon not let them know that they're dealing with a ding-bat.

In contrast to cleaning procedures of the 20th century to those of the 17th century, I have it easy, even though I don't get along with vacuum cleaners.

My niece Sharon sent me this tidbit:

The floor was dirt. Only the wealthy had something other than dirt, hence the saying "dirt poor."

The wealthy had slate floors which were slippery when wet. So they spread thresh on the floor to help keep their footing.

As winter wore on they added more thresh until, when the door was opened it started to slip outside. A piece of wood placed at the entry way prevented this from happening, hence a "threshold."