Little Jack’s Corner

My mom and I are fans of infomercials.  Before I married and still lived at my parents house, mom and I would have fun girly moments at midnight, eating peanut butter graham crackers and drinking milk while watching those silly infomercials selling us all sorts of junk.

We still like to watch them although it’s not quite as fun when we’re not together! 

Anyway, there’s this recent infomercial on lately that sells a Shark Steam Mop.  It is supposed to be much healthier than using chemicals, sprays out steaming hot..uh..steam.., and cleans your hard floors with an attatched microfiber cloth at the bottom.   It’s plug-in, has a refillable water tank, and weighs about 5 lbs (the infomercial shows balloons lifting it).

I always thought it was a bunch of patooey.  After having watched mom struggle through coutless numbers of new fangled swiffers, wet mops, and all those other gadgets out to clean hard floors, I sank further and further into my loyalty to my trusty string mop, bucket, and pine-sol.

This newest gadget, however, my mom just had to have it.  So, after countless attempts over the past 3 months at asking me to get it for her off the internet (I kept forgetting..sorry mom), she finally sent in a check for the total to the Fingerhut Catalog company and a few days ago her new Shark Steam mop arrived at her front door curtesy of the UPS man.

She tried it.  She liked it.  And it takes a lot for my mom to like something.

I still thought it was a buncha patooey.

Today, however, in a fit of spring cleaning I called mom up and asked her to bring her little purple steam mop over to my house so it could have a go at my dirty paw tracked floors.  The thought of being 7 months pregnant, lugging out my old mop & bucket, waiting for the floors to dry, and smelling pine-sol for hours had me sick to my stomach.  What could one little test run with this silly steam mop hurt.  Right?

So mom and dad (and Prissy, dad’s spoiled little yorkie) arrives at my house today at 4:30.  The mop is with them.

Mom had already filled the tank with water for me and I had already swept so we were ready to roll.   On goes the microfiber cloth (check) and in goes the plug (check).

“How long do we have to wait???” I ask.

Mom says it only takes 30 seconds to heat up.  So I wait.  30 seconds.

Then I had to do the initial pumping of the handle - 15 quick pumps to get the steam a’flowin’.  And with that, I start to work. 

I have linoleum rug in my butler style kitchen, attatched laundry room, and (small) attached dining room.  It’s got kinda small 70s style square designs and is yellow-y with brown spotches and brown outlines on the squares.  And it hadn’t been mopped in 3 weeks.  To my surprise the little steam mop cleaned the floor better than I had imagined it would.  In fact (and I feel disloyal saying this) it cleaned better than my old string mop & pine-sol usually does (and without the heavy scrubbing I have to do with the string mop!).  

On just one tank full of water, the little chugaluggin steam mop cleaned its way through my whole laundry room, kitchen and dining room.  Every 9 square feet or so I would have to repump the handle 2-4 quick times to recharge the steam output but that was pretty easy and was done during normal pushing and pulling of the mop.  It even dried in no time!  I don’t know about you, but I hate hate hate having to wait for a mop floor to dry.   Best of all, there was no smells.  As much as I like pine-sol, I’m not too fond of strong smells right now.  Plus I’ve gotten myself into the habit of worrying about how I’ll rearrange my life once a tiny baby is living in my household.  I don’t want my son breathing pine-sol for hours after a mopping session!

I was so excited about what a superb job it did that I refilled the tank a wee bit and did my little foyer area by the front door.  We have square plank wood (or whatever?) that’s a light golden color as you come in our front door - so that means lotsa traffic and lotsa dirt.  The space is only about a 3′ x 5′ area or so and my string mop could never get it quite clean enough, especially with minimum room to maneuver without hitting the living room carpet (used, wet string mop + pine-sol + light living room carpet = yuck!!!).  But the job was just right for the little purple steam mop.  It got the job done beautiful.

Can you tell how excited I am?

By the end of today’s mopping expidition I knew I wanted one myself (a rare thing).  Although right now, with the $79 price tag, it will be a while before I can afford my own.  My next best thing is to beg mom to bring it over every week for my mopping.  :)  Thank goodness I have an awesome mom.