Bleach Mishaps?

I started the load of white linen one final time in hopes that this new bleach would eradicate the chocolate stains that were all over the Relief Society's white tablecloths. This was my last chance as my last few tries had left the chocolate as one with the tablecloth, a brown smudge dotting the cloths. Not experienced in the usage of bleach in a washing machine I read the directions and decided to double the amount called for per load. It couldn't hurt, I thought.

After half and hour the house was filled with the smell of bleach as sweet thoughts of once again white linen that I could in good faith return to the Relief Society filled my mind. Thus finishing making family night treats with my daughter I went to check on the load. It was wonderful. Everything was bright white. I was musing on whether I should rinse the load once more as it smelled strongly of chlorine when I looked down at my feet and noticed a long puddle of water. No! I thought. There's no way. I quickly threw down a nice green kitchen towel to clean up the water and to my utter amazement the nice green towel quickly gained huge white splotches as it soaked up the "water". Apparently the one time that my washer decided to leak was the time that I had it filled with brand new and quite volatile bleach. "Who cares about the smell of the tablecloths I thought as I threw them in the dryer. I just hope there's not enough bleach left to eat holes in them."

It just so happened that at that exact moment my baby started screaming from his swing, my daughter needed me to move things for her, the oven timer was beeping and I was tracking bleach everywhere. In a triage situation you quickly determine what needs action most urgently and act accordingly. Obviously the bleach won, to an extent. I grabbed the laundry baskets off the floor, moved the boxes of food that were right by the washing machine as well as the big tupperware container, quickly mopped the bleach that I could see with my sad little "once green" towel, then ran to the bathtub to rinse my shoes. I didn't want to risk holes in them as they were my favorite pair. Lacking the luxury of time, I just stood in the bathtub in an inch of water then quickly dried them on the floor mat by stomping a couple of times and ran to put our family night treat in the oven, comfort the baby and look up in time to see a squirrel trying to get into my bird cage. Aaaa! I ran outside clapping at the little rodent until he finally got the point and ran. Then I ran back inside took the treat out of the oven, decided that the bleach water under the washing would just have to dry on its own (hopefully leaving no further stains), sat down for a second to breathe and hoped that on top of everything else I hadn't fumigated our quaker parrot. Ah yes, the typical day of a mother of young children, a wonderful day sprinkled with moments of madness throughout. The slightly ironic thing is that I had just looked at my washroom today and thought that I really needed to clean it out. Be very, very careful of the things you hope for. :)