Elbow Grease, Boil, Repeat

You know that saying, "You can't live with them, you can't live without them"? As much as I love the boy, during the years we were dating and did not cohabitate, my apartments were much neater than my house tends to be these days.

I do what I can to keep the place respectable but DH is a whirlwind of mess. I swear his clothes seem to fly off of his body in every direction while spewing crumbs so that he may find his way back to them without tripping over whatever else is in the floor.

Husbands, in general are just a messy breed and little to nothing can be done about it.

2004, South Philadelphia. It's winter, I'm new here, and I could really use something comforting to make me feel at home, even if it's just for an hour or two. The house I'm currently living in seems to be devoid of frying pans. The purchase of an "emergency pan" was necessary.

Any excuse to visit Fante's on 9th street in the heart of the Italian market is a good one. It was there that I purchased the 10" frying pan that somewhere along the last six years has become "the boys pan."

Tired of his aggressive use of metal implements in my non-stick Tupperware pans (Yes, Tupperware makes pans. And they're awesome.) I informed him that this was now "his" pan and he was in charge of it's care.

This is what the pan looks like now (after vigorous scrubbing).



The problem is, he's been occasionally using some of my other pans. For example my copper core fry pan from Williams-Sonoma.



Today during a Felix Unger meets Shirley Feeney style fit of cleaning I broke out the pans and attacked them with baking soda and elbow grease. The results were minuscule.

I then boiled a mixture of water and baking soda in the pans for around 30 minutes. The results for my William-Sonoma pan were noticeable but not yet impeccable


and the results on "the boys pan" were a small dent.

In a fit of desperation at the suggestion of the internet I tried some Easy-Off. After the process of:
dishwasher
baking soda / elbow grease
boiling / baking soda
baking soda / elbow grease
Easy-Off
Dishwasher

The pan (in my opinion) is still in need of divine intervention.



I'm gonna need more elbow grease. It's a good thing I have an economy sized bag of baking soda . . .