A Very Disgusting Story

Mold of all kinds and I are locked in an epic battle. That isn't news. I come from a moldy part of the country, I live in a "garden-level" basement apartment, I am allergic to mold, and I love moldy cheese. That's just how things are.

Mold and my apartment love each other. They make out every day. It's disgusting. But that isn't the story.

The story is this: I have a portable dishwasher, and it is a handy appliance until it stops sucking water out of the sink's faucet and spraying it into the dishwasher body. A few weeks ago, I loaded it with dishes that had been carefully rinsed, loaded my very-eco "biokleen" dish detergent that is only scented with grapefruit oil, and turned it on. It made a huge growling, churning sound, and I turned it off, saddened. It might not be dead, but it was not going to run that day.

Then I kind of forgot about it. And then remembered, put it off, remembered, left town for a week, remembered, and finally opened it.

I had forgotten that the dishwasher had pulled maybe two inches' worth of water into its main compartment.

And so there was mold. Mold growing on the dishes (green), mold growing in the water at the bottom. Mold mold mold. I washed three loads of dishes with more hot water and more soap than I have ever used on dishes ever, ever; I found places to dry them; I realized I needed to get the water out of the bottom, but how to do that? I tried mopping it out: let the mop head soak up some water; squeeze it out in the sink; repeat. Then, since it has wheels and I have a patio/pit thing, I rolled it outside and tilted the whole thing forward, letting the mold water run out. At 1:30am.

After I finished treating the inevitable hives and sinus freak-out, I resolved to 1) do dishes every day and 2) figure out how to fight mold for real. Apparently running the air conditioning helps, so the internet says, especially in a tightly-sealed apartment, which I do indeed have. Drying wet things helps, cleaning helps, bleach, soap, on and on.

I've also been feeling really dizzy for the last few days, and I think it's an allergy thing maybe mixed with a med side effect, and I'm hoping that less mold will help allergies go away. Maybe?

But to end the disgusting story with some glee:

Ways I'd Really Like to Kill Mold
1.) with vodka, both for me and for the mold--vodka's like bleach, right?
2.) with sound, I'm thinking death metal
3.) with love: "Can't we live in harmony? I love you in cheese!"
4.) by growing mushrooms, to encourage jealousy and rivalry, with hopes the mold would lose to the mushrooms in some kind of fungi-bacteria-all tiny things war
5.) with ground-up penicillin scattered about
6.) by burning lavender-scented candles
7.) by wishing really hard
8.) by donating to NPR, in a kind of karmic way
9.) by talking trash about it (not working yet)
and 10.) ... by doing nothing at all.