Get friendly with caulk.

And find a good caulk remover tool. This is a bad caulk remover tool. You see the metal part on the right side? It's attached to the handle with a glued-on piece of plastic. That glue has less strength than the caulk, I pretty much guarantee it. So unless you're ripping out soft, still-pliable caulk—and why would you be doing that—this tool will break.

See?

Fortunately...albeit rather embarrassingly...I'm a sucker for infomercials. So while DBF picked out the *ahem* soon-to-break tool, I was drawn to the DAP Pro Caulk tool kit which looks remarkably like something I once saw on an infomercial...so I had to have it.

It only cost about $5, so it wasn't a big deal. DBF rolled his eyes a bit, but I said a little prayer for Billy Mays, tossed it into the cart, and we moved on.

About two inches into the caulk removal, the more expensive tool broke. I let fly a ridiculously long string of curses (there's little I find more annoying than gearing up for a project and being thwarted almost immediately), regained my composure, and then pulled out the cheaper tool and a razor blade. Voilà! Caulk be gone.

That flat black thing in the background is the better caulk removal tool. I say "better" and not "good" because it, too, has its drawbacks. It's really, really thin, so if you're digging out caulk that you believe to be older than you, it will dig into your hands a bit. But it will also get the job done.

Compared to removal, application is the easy part...especially when DBF takes over. So in one long, dirty afternoon, we had a freshly-caulked, sealed, virtually ick-free tub.

After the tub, I felt rather empowered to conquer the world of caulk. So the next day I decided to tackle the gap between the kitchen counter and backsplash. I say gap, but in some places it was practically a crevasse. But hey, caulk'll fix it!

And it did...but I learned yet another valuable lesson.

Be absolutely, positively sure that you've thoroughly cleaned the area you're caulking...especially if you're using clear caulk.

Let my caulked sesame seed be your reminder: Clean before you caulk.