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-High School Teacher quote: "Dot, dot, dot..."-

Not much recorded of my dreams last night. I'm worrying myself over too many things that are out of my control.

Now, for the long-unawaited Step 5: The Vile, Encrusted Toilet.

Please ensure that your Glass Cleaner is stowed and that you are in the locked and upright position. As the only alternatives to this position would entail a great deal of contact with the yet-uncleaned Floor, I cannot imagine how you would desire to do otherwise but to stand. However, there must be protocol.

You will now procure your Toilet Brush (never to be confused with the similar Tooth Brush). If you are lucky (or merely have an ounce of foresight), this singular item will be hanging conveniently from the nearest Toilet. If this is not the case, you will find the Toilet Brush either in the garage or in the bathroom farthest away from the one you are currently cleaning, precipitating a long trek to said room, followed by a long trek back to the current bathroom. This may not seem like an unendurable hardship at this time, but that is only because the Toilet Brush is currently dry. It is an unspoken law of nature that once you have finished business with the Brush, it will resist all attempts at shaking the moisture within into the Toilet Bowl, but, by some strange magnetic-gravitational-intermolecular force, will instantly release all this water several seconds later. Coincidentally, you will be carrying it over carpet when this occurs.

But I anticipate! Right now, the Toilet Brush (or TB, as it will interchangeably be referred to as) is not only dry, but, if it is like mine, is lacking a Head. This is, hopefully, intended. My TB, for instance, is one of those flushable sorts that is sold at 99¢ stores with great, hermitically sealed flats containing capsules of Brush Heads, which one uncovers, singly, when needed, and plunges the Headless TB into, in much the manner of a viper sucking a prairie dog out of its tunnel. It turns out that this metaphorical prairie dog is relatively stupid, and has thus sealed the end of its tunnel a very short distance in, making catching it, an easy task. It could be argued, however, that the metaphorical viper is stupid as well, considering that it now contains, in its metaphorical mouth, a very real, caustic blue tubular object that is about to be swirled about in a Toilet. But I digress.

Once you have the properly bedecked TB in hand, walk authoritatively toward the Vile, Encrusted Toilet. If your TB is the nondisposable kind, it may be employed immediately to the grime within, with a enough Bowl Cleaner added to scald the delicate posterior of whoever is unfortunate enough to use the Toilet directly following the cleaning. For the disposable camp, you have a very grave dilemma, due to the fact that the brush is utterly useless dry (bearing more resemblance to an ugly, blue, fringed rock than a soft brush), and will swiftly disappear once moistened in the Bowl. This is all well and good if your goal is to prevent the Toilet from flooding when the Brush Head is flushed, but this is not your goal. Your goal is to clean off all the scum that has affixed itself, barnacle-like, to the surface of the Bowl. Furthermore, it will inevitably not be your own scum. This results in a truly horrifying moment when the first tentative scrubs of the Brush are applied. Inexorably, almost so predictably you can see the wave coming and anticipate your doom, invisible particulates from the unnameable scum you are attacking will rise. This is the scum's primitive, yet effective, form of biochemical warfare. The torture in this process is doubled by the waiting, the sweating, the dreading, then BLAM!! Your nostrils tighten quickly, your head turns away, but there will be no escape, especially if you are using the disposable TB and have a limited window in which the thing exists. Instead, you must press forth, scrubbing vainly away at repulsive, scabby deposits of filth, even as they become harder and harder to see as the water gets darker and darker blue...

To be continued...(Step 6: Floor)

Reality check, everyone! And a bit of friendly advice? Never use a newly cleaned Toilet before you flush out the blue stuff. I speak from painful experience.