The Day I Was Shamed By All-Natural Cleaning

I think it's time we paused to talk about vinegar. In my previous life as a young woman living in Virginia, I did not consider vinegar a very useful daily tool.  It was something you sometimes cooked with, maybe mixed up to make a salad dressing or tossed in cold pasta to liven up your favorite summer picnic dish.  My friends, it is safe to say that vinegar has a far greater purpose here in my adopted Caracas home.  There is, in fact, a whole half an aisle in the grocery store dedicated to just one vinegar- your run-of-the-mill white distilled vinegar.  It maintains its place of honor along with the other half aisle of rice and beans because Venezuelans use vinegar for absolutely everything.

-Out of windex?  Use vinegar!
-Need to clean your wood floors that are painted with a freaking half an inch of varnish? --Use vinegar!
-Need to clean the ilk that give you parasites off your vegetables?  Use vinegar!
-Having health problems?  Warts, the plague, heart disease? Take a shot of vinegar daily!

I was skeptical, gentle readers, about the near religious adherence given to vinegar.  Then, I came upon domestic a problem I could not solve.

So, I bought wine glasses before anything else.  Actually, I bought the coffeemaker first, then wine glasses.  Priorities.  Anyways, the glasses I bought were plastic, so I could take them to the pool.  Again, priorities.  But when I bought them, they were covered in a cloudy film.  I figured they were just dirty (like many things you find in the store are here), and I could just wash off the film at home.  I tried three times to scrub them down wish dish soap the evening I got them and the film was untouched.  Since they seemingly do not sell sink stoppers in the whole of Venezuela, I couldn't soak the little boogers, so I figured myself stuck.  Stuck forever with icky, cloudly plastic wine glasses not even fit for poolside, bottom shelf vino.  What's a girl to do?

This girl grabbed a toothbrush, that damned bottle of vinegar and started scrubbing down.  Literally, without much elbow grease, the film disappeared.  No, said I.  This can't be!  The glasses will dry and we'll be back to square one!

I sit here, up way too late, drinking water from my clean, clear wine glass.  Why not drink wine, you ask?  Because I bought the vinegar first.  Priorities people!