I was traveling when the coronavirus concerns started to ratchet up, so that meant I got home after all the stores had been raided for products people might need. Hand sanitizer to keep them from coming down with Covid-19, cleaning chemicals to sanitize their homes, and the usual assortment of food and other goods that people stock up on when there’s a storm coming. Nonetheless I managed to cobble together enough supplies to get us started, anyway.
That was mid-March, and here we are two weeks later, looking over the edge of March into the coming of April. The coronavirus has become a bigger storm than it was, and it certainly isn’t done. Closures and stay-at-home orders have gained momentum in the US, and around the world. Many of us don’t know, or don’t yet know, someone who has contracted the coronavirus, but the chance goes up every day that a friend, colleague, loved one contracts the virus.
So, mid-March, sanitizing the house seemed like a good idea to me. I headed off to the usual places: grocery stores, club stores, department stores. Let’s just say that there was not much choice of cleaning chemicals out there. If you liked bleach, there was still plenty of that, but I wasn’t worried enough about killing viruses to risk creating bleach stains all over my house. Finally I came across a couple of options, spray cleaners I’d never heard of, at a club store.
But what would work on coronavirus? Many spray cleaners claim to kill bacteria and viruses, but I wanted to be sure. Or as sure as was possible. Naturally, I consulted the Environmental Protection Agency.
After all, where the US government regulates, the US government usually maintains data…
The EPA maintains a registry of the chemicals that can be used to make claims about what they kill. You’ve probably never paid attention to the tiny print on products, which is where you can find a product’s EPA registration number. I ended up choosing a chemical going by EPA Registration Number 66243-1. Odo-Ban. It claimed to be able to kill the HIV-A virus, which seemed like a solid endorsement of virus killing to me. Also canine distemper, which was not so much a concern in our home. I was happy to see it came in eucalyptus scent (aren’t we all tired of lemon and whatever that standard “Clorox Wipe” smell is?”) and had been around on the market for a while. After all, nothing worse than some fly-by-night chemical mixture.
I bought a spray bottle, which came with a gallon jug to refill it. This implied a certain optimism about the amount I would be using. Plus, you know. I was at a club store.
I proceeded to clean the kitchen. Now, we have an open floor plan, so kitchen odors are really ground-floor odors. And it turns out this particular eucalyptus is a very strong aroma. Viruses in the house may not have been killed, but the odors, as the name says, were banned. Just sayin’.
In Case of Coronavirus
It’s not clear to me how we’ll kill it
or even if we can know it’s dead.
What kind of chemical to use
is knowledge as far from me
as heaven or hell, which, to be
fair, I have no idea the distance of.
I picked one that claimed in micro-print
to kill the HIV virus when properly applied
and left wet long enough to smother whatever
hard surface harbored the persistent
plight. There was no CDC reference
nor WHO white paper, no chart of virus mortality.
But home on the kitchen island
the eucalyptus tang burned my nose hair,
and if that stink couldn’t make the kill,
at least it smelled as if it might. As if
a whole hospital came with the spray,
not only disinfected walls, but clean floors.
Sterile cabinets and scrubbed-down dish pans.
Plus a certain medicinal air, a smudged aura.
Flicker of safety lights, casting red-orange
down its long corridors. This my kitchen
channeled, coveted. Called out it’s chemical
promise to the other waiting rooms.
Best part of all this? The house is getting used to the eucalyptus smell, and my teens are starting to learn things like following the directions on the package, which means letting the chemical sit on the kitchen surfaces for a time before wiping it off.
If you enjoyed this poem
You’ll find more of my poems on this blog or in the collection Stars Crawl Out From Their Caves, which is available in both ebook and print.
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I use the bleach wipes But a little nervous when the lab tech shows up to take my blood sample wearing a face mask, asking if it was okay to put her supply box for blood draws on my table to which I said “no! on the floor please”, assuming that case has been to many households. wiping the floor with a clorax wipe after she left as well as wiping down the door handles.
All the wiping down of things seems unending, too!