I’ve had several leaks spring this summer in my ceiling. I live on the top floor and our roof is bad and will be fixed soon. It’s patched now so there shouldn’t be any more leaks in my unit, but the damage is done. I’ve poked several holes in my ceiling to route the water away from electrical lines and have plaster falling off in several areas. I’ll have to have someone in to check for mold one of these days, but until then I thought I’d try to kill whatever might be growing where I can reach it.

So, I took my spray container(originally used to discipline Pumpkin. Never really worked, but she does do this cute squinty thing when the nozzle is pointing in her direction. I digress.) and filled it with bleach. I then proceeded to cover the spots in question with a mist of this sterilizing liquid totally forgetting how dangerous it is to things you want to keep colorful. Say, like one’s bright red kitchen rug, or rich green bathroom towels, or even a painted wall? Even a falling mist of this stuff can ruin a perfectly wonderful towel in seconds. There are dried yellow riverbeds running down my green bathroom wall now. My scarlet rug has donned a blond bullet-hole. My towels look like an experimenting teenager.

Honestly, I tell myself this every time I use bleach: Forget not the powers contained beneath this blue cap; there’s a reason it hurts your eyes when you smell it. But invariably, two minutes later color is bleeding from where there was once solid vibrancy.

Bleach: the power of Apollo and Dionysus in one.