I feel screwed over by my caulking this week.

Ok people, I would not call myself a handyman per say but I can do basic general maintenance and little projects like painting, laying down engineered hardwood and laminate flooring, put in new faucets, bathroom sinks and the like. As long as it's not overly complicated electrical rewiring or building a house, I'm pretty sure I can figure things out and manage when it comes to general home repairs. This is why I feel screwed over by my bathroom caulking experience of late.

I have not once, not twice but three times re-caulked my bathtub. I had a feeling when I first starting this caulking mini-project it was going to be a bit of a headache. Mind you that is mostly because I will not be able to use my shower for 36 hours and fear I would feel like a dirty, homeless bum. Actually it's worse, I fear I will smell like a dirty, homeless bum. When I went to Home Depot to buy caulking, this would be the first attempted caulking, one of the stupid orange smock wearing Home Depot helpers could not resist saying, “I know where you can get a good caulking”. Dude should seriously get fired for saying that. This was truly a sign that the caulking would go bad. And it did.

I have to admit, the first time I caulked the tub, I didn't follow the instructions to the tee. I only waited 26 hours and then had a shower. I thought this would be ok. Well it was not ok. All of the caulking bubbled and peeled off. So I waited 18 hours for the tub to dry and then re-caulked. I was feeling somewhat dirty and was in desperate need for a shower. But I knew the last time I screwed up by having a shower too soon. Instead, I was convinced having a non-splashy bath was the way to go. Wrong again. The caulking peeled off the next day. Screwed again!

So I think to myself, perhaps the tub was not completely dry when I caulked it so I used an electric heater to dry out the entire bathroom and rid of any and all moister I can possibly remove. I leave the heater on for 12 hours. I know everything in that bathroom was bone dry because of the heat. My toothpaste even felt warm and had melted into the consistency of Aunt Jamima's pancake syrup. I was almost positive that this time I had done a good caulking job. This time the caulking would be successful. The bathtub area was bone fucking dry and I let the caulking cure for 38 hours. They don't say “third time lucky” for nothing. I was convinced my caulking days were done. Well... I was wrong yet again! While I was showering today, the caulking peeled off for the third time. Fuck. Who knew I would despise caulk so very much. I am bitter and when I see caulking I want to spit at it.

So today I headed back to Home Depot, convinced I had purchased the wrong caulking and low and behold I had been using the WRONG CAULKING. Who knew there was such a thing as a bad caulking? Hmmm, now THAT sounded dirty. Anyway, I now have in my little hands a very good caulking with a silicone base. No more of that latex shit for me. I'm bring out the big guns now! So tonight I will dry out the bathroom again and put this new caulking to the test tomorrow. This new caulking better be worth it otherwise I vow to never caulk again!