Welcome back to 104.3 The Party, Central Illinois’ number one hit music station. I’m Deanna Nation bringing you through the early morning hours. It’s four AM so you know its time for us to rock that request line. Caller, what would you like to hear?
I’d like to hear the McScrubber Brothers Carpet Cleaning jingle.
Um, who is that by? Is that Prince?
No, it’s the jingle for MsScrubber Brothers Carpet Cleaning.
Like a commercial? I’m sorry caller, four am is a commercial-free power hour.
The ad doesn’t matter. The Brothers McScrubber haven’t cleaned a carpet together in 50 years. I simply want to hear the jingle for McScrubber Brothers Carpet Cleaning.
Um…
This is the request line, isn’t it? My request is to hear the McScrubber Brothers Carpet Cleaning jingle.
Sir, my producer Larry has googled The Scrub Men…
McScrubber Brothers.
And he can’t find any evidence of them ever being a business, carpet cleaning or otherwise.
Come on, I just need you to play the jingle and then I can die!
Uhhh…?
Oh come on, Deanna Nation, isn’t it obvious? I’m Elton McScrubber, the elder McScrubber brother. My brother Larimer and I were the hottest bubbliest carpet cleaners in town. Everyone knew our jingle.
When your carpet is dirty
There’s no need to blubber
For a clean floor fast
Call the Brothers McScrubber
We were number #3 on the Billboard Hot Advertising Jingle Charts in 1968.
I don’t think that’s a thing.
We started our business with nothing more than a bottle of soap, a dream, and a significant inheritance from our late father. Larimer and I cleaned carpets from Milwaukee to Oshkosh then back to Milwaukee because that’s where we resided. We had everything, money, women, and most importantly a brotherly bond that could not be broken by anything except a woman with money.
Can we play something else for you? Like any song that is real?
My brother and I met Lilac Borabard when she called us to clean a red wine stain from her ivory angora rug. Larimer fell in love with her the moment he saw her. It took me a bit longer because I was hauling the rug cleaner in from the truck.
Lilac Borabard was the most beautiful woman in all of eastern Wisconsin and the heiress to the Borabord Billboard fortune. She was a widow with a terrible secret. That secret being her husband was actually alive.
Maybe some Lizzo?
Every day Lilac would spill something on her carpet and call The McScrubber Brothers to clean it for her. Larimer insisted on taking every call, alone. Coffee, ink, urine, every imaginable liquid was spilled on those carpets until one day Lilac stopped calling. She didn’t need to because Larimer had moved in.
But I thought you said you loved her too?
Exactly. I was terribly jealous. So jealous I cut him out of our business entirely. The McScrubber Brothers became The McScrubber Man. I took his face off of the logo, cut him out of the business, and even recorded a new jingle.
Love is a lie
Love is a sham
We all die alone
Call the McScrubber Man
That’s grim.
It didn’t even chart on the Billboard Hot Advertising Jingle Charts. One night I drove to Lilac’s house to confront her and Larimer, except I was too late. Someone had beat me to it.
Oh my god, Lilac’s husband.
Lilac’s husband indeed. He’d shot both Larimer and Lilac in a jealous rage and then killed himself. Lilac was floating face down in her billboard-shaped swimming pool.
So, a rectangle?
Larimer was bleeding out on the carpet. I knew what I had to do. I pulled Larimer up, jammed his wound full of silk scarves and we cleaned his blood out of that carpet. It was the last carpet we cleaned together. As Larimer took his last breath on the tile floor, he shuddered, “Will the ambulance be here soon?” I realized I had forgotten to call an ambulance so Larimer died in my arms.
Why the jingle?
I need to hear the McScrubber Brothers Carpet Cleaning jingle one last time. Then the curse will be lifted and I can die.
What curse?
The curse! The curse! The curse placed on me by a witch when I wouldn’t clean the eye of newt out of her sandstone Berber! Keep up Deanna Nation!
You never said… whatever. While you were talking my producer Larry found a clip online of the jingle.
Thank you for your service Deanna Nation. In return, I leave to you all of the McScrubber Brothers ivory eggs.
Ivory eggs? Nevermind. Here’s the 1968 hit the McScrubber Brother’s Carpet Cleaning jingle.
Dial tone.