Kathleen McCall:
Occasional�� Muse�

2002-01-22 - 9:38 p.m.

Home Improvement

I caulked the girls' bathtub over the weekend.

It sounds so simple. "I caulked the girls' bathtub," like "I ran to the post office." Like it was a ten-minute thing, wipe the hands, all done, on to the next thing.

Is any home project that easy? Mine aren't.

I HAD caulk, in the garage. It was very very old caulk, but what the hell; waste not, want not, right? Except that when I was in the bathtub in my grubbies (in case there was any leftover bleach around, which there will be if I'm NOT in grubbies) and I had my rags and whatnot and I started squeezing the tube, the aged plastic gave way and shot caulk out the sides and bottom all over the bathroom. So I was left with the choice of trying to apply the caulk with my fingers, or springing for a brand new tube.

What did I do? I put duct tape around the tube.

Did it work? No, it did not. Note: there ARE some things duct tape will not mend.

But I wanted to go to Wal-Mart anyway, because I needed a floodlight and some index cards and pretzels, and when you have a list of unrelated odds and ends, Le Mart du Wal is your store.

BF took me. He wasn't in a big shopping mood, so when we found the caulk aisle he wanted to grab and run. "Wait! That one's a dollar more!" So he puts it back and grabs the cheaper one. "Wait! Why is THAT one cheaper?" It's not that I mind spending a dollar more on my caulking, mind you. I just want to know what I'm GETTING for my dollar. I'm not paying a dollar just for that fancy DAP logo. On the other hand, I'm not buying any of your INFERIOR caulk. "This one has a lifetime guarantee. What does THAT mean?" Do they have an 800 number? Will they come out and recaulk for me when it mildews? Or will they put me on Muzak hold for an hour? "Press one for spackle... press two hundred seventeen for caulk." Oh, I don't know about this. And why do I have to buy ALL THIS caulking when I only need enough for the bathtub? I'm not going into it as a career, you know. Two and a half dollars worth of caulking when all I'm going to use is about fifty cents' worth, and then I'll put the tube in the garage where it will sit for so long that the next time I try to use it it will explode all over the bathroom. Maybe I should wait until someone ELSE comes to this aisle and SPLIT some caulking with them. But then, who would get to use it first while the nozzle is still clean? What if they got it first and they cut the tip too far down, at the "fat caulk" line instead of the "skinny caulk" line? You can't fix THAT with your duct tape.

"All right! All right! I'm buying this one already!"

We get home with my caulk, and he's not sticking around for the show. "Ten minutes," I tell him. "I'll be over in ten minutes after I do the tub." He just looks at me. "Okay, twenty minutes." Caulking is no big deal, after you've chosen your weapons. Is it?

You know, when you ice a cake (there is a connection here, trust me) you can kind of make these swirl things with the knife that cover a multitude of sins. You can't swirl caulk. I remember my little finger as being an excellent caulk-smoothing tool, but that must have been when I didn't have long fingernails. I pipe on the caulk, a nice fine line, and smooth it with my finger. Only now I have a hell of a lot of caulk on my finger and not so very much caulk on the tub, plus there is that funky mark where I STOPPED smoothing, and THAT looks terrible. I'm sorry, but it looks like your husband did it. "Jeeesus, it's SEALED, what the hell do you women WANT?" I want a perfect caulk line, that's what I want. But you can't really fix caulk. It's like trying to fix nail polish - it just gums up and gets all weird and you have to take it off and start all over. In case you didn't know, THAT'S why you get the big tube.

It's not easy being perfect. Especially when you have an audience. One of the reasons I needed to recaulk was that the ants have found a way in through the old cracked seals, and the ants that were still in the tub when the construction began got pretty antsy. I took a little of my tension out on them. "Ha ha! DETOUR, suckers! You'll have to go around through the kitchen!" Made me feel better. Then I started thinking about what would happen if they got stuck in the wet caulk and died a horrible death by DAP, and I felt bad about that, so I squished them.

So anyway I finished, and it doesn't look nearly as good as it should, but it's sealed, but now the girls are coming home and will have to bathe before the 36 hour cure is up. So I'll be telling them, "Don't put cups of water up on the side and don't SPLASH," which is the equivalent of "Don't be children," so we will probably be voiding my 800-Number Lifetime Caulking Guarantee right off the bat here. I'm thinking next time I might just try sealing the tub with duct tape. You think?

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