Be Ready For All Of Thanksgiving's Stains And Spills

This is why you’re Nonna’s favorite.

The Wirecutter’s Lesley Stockton and my editor at the New York Times, Tim Herrera, stopped by to kick off the holiday season, Clean Person-style! In the first of a five-episode arc devoted to the holidays and the extraordinary messes they visit upon us, Lesley, Tim and I did a deep dive into the most common holiday stains, including what to do when Uncle Bob inevitably upends a full glass of red wine on the good table linens. (Uncle Bob is a menace, the whole family agrees that Thanksgiving would be so much better without him, and yet!)

Here’s what I covered in my 95th episode:

Literally everything you need to know about handling red wine stains;

Also, cranberry sauce stains;

How to treat grease stains, so you’ll be prepared when the gravy boat is upended all over the table;

What to do when a guest gets his or her lipstick on your glassware, china or cloth napkins;

When lipstick gets on your collar, ahem;

Cleaning that sticky residue that builds up on kitchen and bathroom surfaces like cabinets and baseboards;

TOILET PLUME IS SO REAL;

The abusive relationship I’m in with my Roomba, Christine.

Over in the bonus episode, I confessed to Tim that I’d buried a deep Easter egg for Jolie Kerr superfans in the fridge cleaning article I just wrote for the Times. Lesley offered some great tips for creating space in your refrigerator during the holidays, then we commiserated about being hoarders of mustards, pickles, and jars. We closed things out by making sure Tim was okay after the big toilet plume reveal in the main episode. I’m never prouder than when I horrify a new editor.

You can subscribe to Ask a Clean Person: The Podcast in Acast, Apple Podcasts, PlayerFM, Stitcher and all the other places you’d expect to find podcasts. For bonus episodes and all sorts of other cool rewards, head over to Patreon to help underwrite the show. Got Qs for the pod? Email Jolie with the subject line CLEANCAST.