A Bleach Miracle

I haven't really told many people this (other than the ones who come into my home on a regular basis), but back in February, Eric bought me new couches for my birthday. We had picked the couches out at IKEA a few weeks prior, but still hadn't decided on what color covers to get. I wanted Beige, Eric wanted Arctic White. Since we couldn't agree, we put off the couch purchase for a while.

On my birthday, Eric and Lexi and I went out to lunch at Panera and then rummaged through Borders for a while, since everything was on clearance. When we got home, Eric said he had to do an errand with Luc and took the car and left, promising it wouldn't take long.

Four hours later, he came home.

With the new couches! Surprise!!!

....and Arctic White covers.

Now to be fair to Eric, who I love more than life itself most of the time, he did plan to get the Beige covers, but they were out of stock. And of course, the white ones were all the store had left. We probably should have taken that as a warning sign. Instead, I think Eric saw it more like an "it's your destiny" sign.

So we now we have gorgeous couches with pretty white covers, a spring green area rug, sheer white window curtains, and blooming geraniums on the windowsills. It really does make a pretty picture. And while hesitant about the white at first, I really fell in love with how beautiful the room now looks.

That is, until this morning.

Bleary-eyed, and holding a whimpering baby (who has been feeling rather neglected lately due to a dramatic decrease in her breast-milk supply), I walked into our pretty living room this morning only to find that one of our *&#$*#!!!# cats had barfed brown goo all over one of the cushions of our Arctic White couch.

Now I know what you are probably thinking... The only people dumb enough to buy white couches are either very old or very rich or just plain stupid.

The very old folks who buy their sitting furniture in white will put plastic covers on everything just in case the one visitor they have twice a year may spill something on it. That way, it stays white, just like new, and is completely stain resistant!

The rich people who buy white couches can of course justify it, given that they are probably never home (due to the fact that they have three other houses as well) and their living rooms are constantly photographed for Better Homes and Gardens magazines.

But a young couple with a baby, two cats, lots of young friends who come over all the time, and lots of other baby visitors, can hardly justify the practicality of Arctic White couches. Hardly. It's just down right ridiculous.

And yet, I really do love them.

Deep down.

Which is why I spent the entire morning hanging over the bathtub trying to scrub and scrub and scrub and devise some amazing plan to get the huge, horrid, now yellow cat barf stain off of said Arctic White cover.

One of the great things about being not all that smart (like in the decision to buy white couches), is having smart friends. Take Jenny, for instance. You can visit her blog here and know just by looking at it that she is one intelligent gal, who would never buy a piece of white furniture. So after an hour of unsucessful, desperate scrubbing, I dried my chapped and raw hands on a towel and called her up. Of course, she came right over to my rescue, toting along a large container of bleach.

Thank God for bleach.

Jenny mixed up a bleach solution, poured it over the stain two different times, and within ten minutes, the stain had completely vanished.

Again I will say it: Thank God for bleach. And for smart friends who know how to use it, and who, while recognizing the idiocy of purchasing Arctic White couch covers, still choose to love me anyway.