The Vinegar Stroke of Genius

In this blog's nine month gestation we have been to many places togther. We have talked about technology and it's importance to computers. There were moments of romance. Diversions into literature and culture and, occasionally, there were reviews. Reviews of things like films and devices and Kimya Dawson. And there was the embarrassing moment when I was phishted by a man from Africa.

But there hasn’t been much in the way of commentary upon domestic product-utility and this, my dear reader, is a vacuum I have a yearnin’ to fill.

My Grandmother Hilda always used to say that vinegar was good for cleaning windows; If you backtrack George Formby's classic you can hear devil speak to this effect. I tried it as a youth and it was without doubt low on smear and high on polish.

Since then I have stopped cleaning windows. I have however kept a healthy, if a little anal, interest in domestic cleaning product technology.

Then this week I read and article about how vinegar ills 98% of all household bacteria. That’s a high percentage, on par with bleach. I have also read in follow up that vinegar is a great all-round cleaning product which can dissolve dirt and grease and slime and gunk as well as deodorize.

Its Sunday evening and the kids have been just noisy and messy. So, in order to keep out of their maelstrom I have been cleaning in the kitchen. This is not a rare occurrence in the "irregular solar orbiting body sense," but nonetheless, I saw there vinegar on the shelf and I went to work.

I have the cleanest fridge on my street. It smells a bit, well, vinegary, but a quick wipe down and hey presto. The gammy bits of egg yoke are gone. The nanobiotic congealed dairy miasma is now neutralized. I have conquered.

There was something quite liberating about this revelation. Along the lines of giving the bird to all of the post war investment and marketing in high-tech cleaning products.

This deserves a poem that I shall title “Ode to Vinegar”. And it goes a little something like this:

Ode to Vinegar

A spray bottle
Acetic acid distilled.
Spray it on your surfaces
And bacteria is killed.

A spray bottle
White acetic mist,
Hard with the vinegar stroke
And easy on your wrist.