How clean is your car?
A. Clean
B. Clean enough
C. Kinda yucky
D. OMG What DIED In Here!?
I’m usually “Clean Enough”. I corral wrappers and stuff in one (always) full garbage bag, but I have little control over the toys, food particles and other random debris that the two kids and I bring into the vehicle.
My husband once came in after cleaning out my truck and said “why is it that you manage to keep the house clean but the truck looks like a homeless person is living in it?” I think he answered his own question because clearly keeping my vehicle clean is not my priority.
Well I got a new (to me) car in November and it has only been cleaned out once since then. It was well into “Kinda Yucky” and since I accidentally broke a bottle of wine in the back (TRAGEDY!) it was starting to smell like “OMG What DIED In Here!?”
So the other day I set about to thoroughly clean it out which took a heck of a lot of time, many different cleaning products and paper towel. Lots of paper towel… The sheer amount of crumbs, leaf debris, grass, sand, rocks, dirt, and Lego pieces overwhelmed the shop vac.
There were also 2 lip balms, 1 lipstick, an iPod transmitter, a Swiss army knife, 2 tubes of hand lotion, 2 Umbrellas, 2 cell phone chargers, a poppy, $1.60 in change, 2 pairs of sunglasses, one pair of eyeglasses, a bottle of sunscreen, various scraps of paper and kids crafts, a hockey bag, 17 cloth grocery bags for Superstore, and 3 different packages of gum.
So the car is back to “Clean Enough” and I’m sure my husband is thrilled. But maintaining that kind of standard with kids is really, really tough.
I got to test drive a 2012 Ford F150 King Ranch with the Eco Boost engine while we were in Calgary last month, and one of the rules indicated that there was to be no food or drinks (other than water) in the vehicle. Perfectly reasonable, but wow was I ever sweating it when I put the kids car seats in. The truck was pristine. It was all beautiful soft leather, spotlessly clean carpets and glorious new car smell. And I was going to put my children in it; my mess making, dirt tracking, crumb spouting children in the back of this beauty. While I thoroughly enjoyed driving it, I was absolutely tyrannical about the kids; I conducted spot checks of their shoes, I inspected their pockets for contraband goldfish crackers, and I just about had a heart attack when one of them managed to smuggle a juice box in the truck. It was quickly confiscated… On the plus side, my husband was so paranoid about the kids making a mess out of that truck that he is now much more relaxed about the state of my vehicle which allows me to occupy that happy place somewhere between show room and flop house. 😉
