When I caution my kids to be careful, I need to be watching what I am doing as well! Good thing my Munchkinette was looking out for me.
In an attempt to practice the three R’s of environmental friendly living, I have saved a few juice bottles to use as water bottles. One brand of pomegranate juice that I buy comes in a nice sturdy bottle that is just right.
This winter, my family has been recycling germs. I don’t think this is environmentally friendly at all! I’m sure that a whole forest had to give its all to provide the facial tissue we have used. I have been using bleach in our dish water (no automatic dishwasher here – my kids keep telling me that we are the only family in North America without one, and yes, they are very tired of being told that we have two dishwashers that don’t work without being nagged or bribed!).
Anyway, to get back to this morning’s incident, I use one of my sturdy empty pomegranate juice bottles to keep a supply of bleach in the kitchen. I covered the label with large red warning stickers: CAUTION, FULL STRENGTH BLEACH. I bet you can guess where this story is going.
I was talking to my daughter about how we need to be very careful with the bleach. She told me that yesterday she was smelling the bleach and got a drop on her upper lip. She wanted to know if one drop would kill her or maim her for life, and I assured her that she was fine. As we were talking, I took what I thought was my water bottle, dumped out what I thought was yesterday’s leftover water, and refilled the bottle with fresh water. My daughter told me she could smell bleach. I could, too, but I reasoned that the smell must be coming from the dishes she washed yesterday. Then I noticed that the bottle with all of my warning labels was on the table instead of beside the sink. I was very confused, until I saw my water bottle sitting by the sink.
I don’t think it would have killed me to drink from the bleach bottle that had been emptied and filled with fresh water, but thanks to my thirteen year old’s sniffer, I didn’t try.
photo by author
Karen
Whew! God sure covered you with His favor on this one!
Incidentally, up until we move to Oregon last July, I was hand washing dishes…Never had a dishwasher. I use to tell those who would hand me a verbal bag of negatives about my doing this “old fashioned chore” that I was burning about 317 calories each time I washed dishes. It sure put a hole in their balloon! 
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