Grown-up problems are tough.

There’s bills to pay, income tax woes and purchasing new tires for one’s vehicle.

But the worst grown-up problem is dealing with the “ick.”

It’s the yukky jobs no grown up wants to ever tackle.

I faced the “ick” this week when our freezer started acting crazy.

Instead of filling up the ice-cube tray with water and emptying frozen cubes into the ice dispenser, the water kept overflowing the tray and we’d find water all over the floor.

The inside of the freezer looked like something out of an arctic cave. But the worst was what our son discovered when he took a flashlight and looked up into the tucked-away water dispenser area to figure out what was going wrong.

He found the mother lode of ick.

Fifteen years’ worth of lime scale, mineral deposits and gunky stuff was all up in there. There was no way to see the ick because it was out of the line of sight.

So I started looking around the house at other hidden areas, and I saw quite a few housekeeping items to add to my ick list.

Since I was in the kitchen, I realized it had been a while since I’d swept or vacuumed underneath the refrigerator. When I got down on the floor and looked, there was so much dust under there, I thought I was looking into an abandoned mummy’s cave.

Standing up, I realized I couldn’t remember the last time I dusted off the top of the refrigerator. I’ve always rationalized that cleaning chore away with the fact that I’m only 5’2” tall and I can’t see what’s up there so it doesn’t matter.

It matters.

Same goes for the top shelves in the kitchen cabinets. I hauled out the step stool and looked – yep, lots of dust up there.

While I was on the ladder, I noticed there’s dust on the ceiling fan blades. Usually the fans are running because we live in the South where it’s hot most of the year.

Because it’s winter and they’re not spinning, I can finally see the layer of dust on top of the blades.

I took a long, hard look at the living room. I don’t remember the last time I took the cushions off the couch to vacuum, but I have a feeling it’s pretty grubby because the grandkids love to eat popcorn and cookies on the couch while watching television.

Then there’s the lampshades. I thought the bulbs were growing dimmer. Turns out, there’s dust on the lampshades. Since we never touch the lampshades, that ick layer has remained undisturbed for months.

A couple of weeks ago, I noticed the shower head didn’t seem to be putting out as much water. I put on my glasses and noticed mineral deposits were covering some of the holes.

We short people have a tough time keeping an eye on the shower heads, but some vinegar and a stiff brush took care of that problem.

I walked into the bedroom and looked behind the door. We never close that door, so, as a result, there’s a nice accumulation of dust and dog hair back there.

Out of sight, out of mind.

Just so it doesn’t appear our house should be visited by the board of health, I keep most areas clean. Bleach and Lysol are my big buddies on Saturday mornings when it’s house cleaning time, and the inside of the refrigerator gets a good cleaning once every couple of months.

This morning, I told my husband about the ick, and to tell the refrigerator repair people not to come. We’d be wheeling that fridge out and replacing it with a new clean refrigerator.

But by the time I came home, he’d completely taken apart the whole water dispensing section in the door of the fridge, cleaned and disinfected every inch of the water dispenser area and run bleach and water through all the tubes.

He got rid of the ick.

If only I can talk him into tackling the top of the fridge…

 

              This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.