Detergent Disaster

So I had a bit of a comical disaster happen today.  I had two large jugs of laundry detergent that I planned to donate to the local animal shelter.  I decided to put them in the back of my car along with some other supplies I had purchased this morning, with the intention of dropping everything off tomorrow.

I had both hands full as I went from my laundry room to the garage and as a result, I could not pull the door closed behind me.  I was sure the dogs would stay in the kitchen because we'd just been outside and they knew it was raining and had shown little interest in anything other than their beds and blankets in the kitchen.  Big mistake.  Maddy came running out, almost tripping me.  Between being caught off guard and trying to stay upright, I dropped one of the jugs.  Of course the plastic cracked open and laundry detergent went everywhere.

That was my secondary concern, though, because without me out in the driveway to supervise her, Maddy seized the opportunity to run across the road where she had spotted our neighbors' chickens walking around.  I chased after her as she ran all over our neighbors' lawn, barking her head off, and I shooed her back to our yard (thank goodness we live up on a hill on a cul-de-sac, so there is rarely any traffic).  She knew she was in trouble, so she turned around, ran at me and then past me, and hightailed it toward the garage.

I then realized that she was about to run right through the detergent seeping all over the garage floor – and because she is also very low to the ground, I knew it wouldn't only be her feet, but also her chest and belly (which were soaking wet due to the wet ground and grass) that would end up covered in the detergent.  So I ran toward the house after her, calling her name in a crazed, high-pitched voice to try and keep her out of the garage.  I was not successful.

Surprisingly, she was clever and fairly athletic (if you knew her, you'd appreciate why I was surprised with her athleticism) and she avoided almost all of the detergent by leaping over an area that the detergent hadn't completely covered yet.  She still tracked wet, muddy, sticky/soapy footprints through the kitchen, but it could have been much worse – especially if the other three dogs had decided to follow her, which they didn't.  Christmas miracle.

The garage was (and still is) a huge mess – I tried to sop up the detergent with countless paper towels, but it seemed like the detergent was just eating the paper towels as quickly as I could put them down.  The detergent splattered all over the side of our car, which I backed out of the garage to tackle the detergent all over the garage floor – as you can see, the detergent went from clear to purple, which I cannot explain.  The best part of the entire experience was how I repeatedly almost bit the dust because everywhere I walked when I was trying to clean up the mess was super slippery.  Hours later, it is now funny to me, but at the time, it was a very frustrating chain of events!

the detergent dissolving the paper towels like nobody's business

why clear detergent turned purple is a mystery

Happy Tails to you!