One day I was feeling guilty about sending my darling wife Regina to work while my unemployed self stayed home. I asked her if there were any household chores that should be done.

“The bathroom floor needs scrubbing.”

“I can do that! What do I use?”

“There’s a purple spray bottle of ceramic tile cleaner under the kitchen sink. Use that.”

I fished around under the sink until I found a purple bottle and dashed upstairs. I dusted the floor so that not even a single dog hair remained. Then I drenched the floor with ceramic tile cleaner. It seemed oddly pasty. When I wiped it off, though, what a sparkle! I had to don sunglasses to appraise my results. Unwilling to tread on such a glorious opus, I admired my work from the doorway. The rewards of my effort would surely be great!

We prepared for bed and I found myself holding my breath as my lovely wife walked toward the bathroom door. Once she entered the room my praises would be sung so loudly the neighbors would hear. The world would know that I was the best, most caring, thoughtful and industrious husband in the world.

“AAAAAAAAGGGGHHHHH!!!!” I heard a series of loud thumps and then a muffled groan. Our hapless German Shepherd beat me to the door. She disappeared through it as though shot from a gun.

I discovered that I had transformed the bathroom floor into a totally frictionless surface. I also discovered that hitting the bathtub hard enough flips you all the way over and you find yourself standing upright inside it.

“Did you bring sunglasses?” Regina asked.

We had to squint to see the floor. I looked unsuccessfully for a patch of untreated surface. I had done a good job.

I stepped carefully out of the tub and put one foot on the floor. Carefully I lifted the other leg.

The foot on the floor left without me. I could not get the other one back underneath me in time. I came down hard on the edge of the tub with a part of my anatomy not designed to absorb impacts. I almost passed out.

I found myself on a floor so diabolically slick I had no hope of rising from it. Having seen what happened to me, the dog refused to step out of the tub. She and my wife watched me flop around on the shiny tile like a dying tuna.

I formulated a plan. I tried opening the cabinet door, but moved myself an arm’s length across the floor. I braced my legs against the cabinet and yanked.

Splits are painful, but so is bashing your head against a hard surface.

Armed with a beach towel I pushed off the wall and shot across the floor to the bathtub. I spread the towel out at the edge of the tub.

“I’m going to hook my feet against the door and pull you out,” I explained. “Sit on the towel. Careful!”

I wiggled into position and waited for Regina to seat herself on the makeshift transport system. To my horror she stepped out of the tub. I expected her to sit on the edge, pivot and lower her posterior to the towel. Unfortunately, I didn’t communicate this to her. Her legs shot out and up. The “No” I shouted was rudely silenced when bare feet contacted me with great force below my chin. I regained consciousness lying face up on the bedroom floor. Then a large dog landed square in the pit of my stomach. She had leaped out of the tub, avoiding contact with the hazardous bathroom floor altogether. Once I could breathe again, Regina and I looked at each other: why hadn’t we thought of that?

Later, while nursing our wounds, we tried to reconstruct what had gone wrong. Why had the cleaning product Regina had used for years suddenly turned on us? Maybe it should be taken off the market.

Maybe we could sue!

The bottle she brought me was totally unfamiliar.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“It’s ceramic tile cleaner.”

“That’s not what I used. The bottle I used is still upstairs.”

She gave me a puzzled look and headed up the stairs, returning with a purple bottle of spray-on car wax.

Oops.