The following is a true story. I know, because it happened to me not more than 15 minutes ago.

It began like any other morning. I had gone to the kitchen to fix myself a bowl of cereal for breakfast. I had already gotten my bowl and the cereal itself, and went to the refrigerator for the milk. I opened the refrigerator, and there was the milk. But as I lifted it out of its door shelf, the top of the milk upset the door shelf above where it was resting.

The entire apparatus came down, jars and all.

I now was looking at what once was a clean kitchen rug, now tainted with red, green, and orange colors. Shards of glass and what they once contained were everywhere on the floor. And the distinct smell of barbeque sauce wafted upon the air.

This left me with the unenviable task of determining what to do first. I decided upon the rug. But it had so much barbeque sauce on it that it didn’t seep all the way down into the mat. It puddled on the top. I had to get it somewhere where I could spray it off with something to get all of it out. That meant outside – traversing a white carpeted floor along the way.

So I made the only choice I could think of at the time. I picked up the mat and turned it on its side. Barbeque sauce again flowed freely onto the floor.

When it stopped dripping, I folded the rug up and took it outside. Still in my sock feet, and with the previous day’s rains on the ground. There are few worse pet peeves in my life than wet socks. But that was the least of my worries.

I got to the hose and turned it on. Luckily, my grandmother had left the jet nozzle attachment on. The barbeque sauce was quickly eradicated from the rug. I left it outside to drip dry on a chair.

Now, back inside, and to task #2 – cleaning the refrigerator itself. Needless to say, the orange-red of a good barbeque sauce doesn’t mesh very well with the pristine white of a refrigerator door and inside, so I had to get all of it out. Even in the little air grates. That was a lot of fun.

This having been accomplished, I got all of the unbroken items – including the still-unused milk – back into the refrigerator. I now faced the most greuling task of all: getting the floor clean.

This, of course, was a job for a mop. I looked around the kitchen, but couldn’t find one, so I went down to the laundry room. Bingo. Now I needed a bucket for water. Once again, I looked, but I couldn’t find any suitably-sized container. On to plan B. I decided that I’d do the same thing with the mop as I did with the rug – spray it off later. In the meantime, I’d dry-mop as best I could. This turned out to work reasonably well, though I had to make sure that the mop wasn’t going to drip onto the white carpet on its way out. The floor still needed another pass, as there were still pieces of glass I hadn’t gotten, but most of the offending sauces were gone. Besides, I had another idea for the remaining problem.

I got outside and jet-nozzled the mop; unfortunately, I didn’t have as much luck getting all of the stains from it. There are now tinges of orange and red where white once was.

Back inside, and part two of Operation No Sauce was ready for action. I knew that my grandmother had bought one of those Swiffer mops one day, and that there were wet-wipe attachments under the sink. The problem was, where was the mop itself? Another search in the kitchen and laundry room proved fruitless, so I went outside. Ah, there it was – I had passed it twice before. I grabbed it and headed back inside. After attaching a wipe to it, I attacked the rest of Dreamland’s best and the remaining pieces of glass. After two wipes, the sauce was gone, but there were still small bits of glass I hadn’t cornered. On to a broom. I got the rest of the glass (I hope) with it. I put the Swiffer by the broom in the laundry room – where I’d know to look should this ever happen again.

Now, to the issue of my clothes. They, of course, were spattered with (all together now) barbeque sauce, and my socks were wringing wet. All of them went into the washer.

Now, the kitchen is spotless, if still a little barbeque-y. Its rugs are nice and clean. And I finally had that bowl of cereal. Who said disaster doesn’t happen in the home?