"Out damn spot!"

I live in a house that has a yellow bathtub and equally buttery matching toilet. Yes, it's a throwback to the place between the 1970's and the 1980's and the color of my sunshine depressed bathroom lost some battle here in the 2000's.

Needless to say, after approximately 30 years-ish of water, showers, and soaking the stress out baths in my yellow submarine tub leaves annoying water spots. Oh, it drove me nuts! I tried soft scrub, not-so soft scrub, hydrochloric acid, Comet, Cupid and a little Donner and I still could not get the water residue out!

Now, this is where the switch in me gets flipped. All of a sudden I go from oh...hum...too bad-- to I AM GOING TO USE EVERY LAST ONCE OF STRENGTH, WILL POWER AND IF NEEDS BE MY VERY LIFE TO GET THESE WATER STAINS OUT OF THIS BATHTUB!!!

Yes, somehow I've turned a little light house cleaning into a gladiator battle to the death! A talent you should be glad you don't have.

I run through the mental list of available tools that might do the trick... Chisel-no. Power drill-no. Hack saw-no. Rock salt-uh maybe-no. My copy of the movie Cinderella and hope there is some way those cute little mice will jump out of the screen and start working on my tub - uh haven't inhaled enough cleaning fumes for that to be really possible yet, so no. Out damn spot! (you can always use the word damn guilt free when quoting Shakespeare)

Then, like a ton of bricks it hits me...A pumice stone! It is abrasive in all the right ways. It gets the hard water rings stains out of the toilet! It should work on my bathtub! I considered turning on a little "Celebrate, Celebrate, Let the good times roll," but came to the conclusion that would be overdoing it a little.

With my goal of a water spot free tub within my reach, I am invigorated and start scrubbing away at those 'damn spots'! My energy level increases as I see the spots disappear and I rinse them away! Oh, how satisfying that was. Yeah, that's right if they gave medals out for kicking butt on water stains--that medal would have my face on it.

I poured out some more soft scrub and rinsed the tub out one last time and enjoyed the beautiful bottom of my reborn buttercup colored bathtub! That's when it happened... the bathtub dried out and I was aghast at what was left behind.

My beautiful bathtub looked like some white trash mechanic decided to wash every car part from his front yard in his bathroom... Or some one had taken a bunch of cinder blocks and washed them nicely in their tub...which is basically what I did. My bathtub looked a little like a car that a janitor had keyed with every single one of his billion keys!!!!

How could this gone so wrong! When people come and stay they're going to look at that tub and decide how uncomfortable it would be to sit in the sink and bathe. I did have one consolation, that bathtub has no water spots on it and you can't tell that I scraped the heck out of it when it's wet. I'll have to run before my guests need to shower and say as the hostess I must warm the water before they get in... Anyway, I'll never pull it off. So, if by chance you happen to come and have to use my tub you'll know why it looks like someone washed it with rocks...IT'S BECAUSE I DID!

My poor tub...