Ode to the Corndog Carcasses
This weekend I completed a task I have been avoiding for a couple of months. I cleaned out the Mommy-mobile. Like, scrubbed the plasticky stuff, vacuumed, etc. I scrubbed and febreezed the snot out of that sucker.
It doesn’t matter how strongly I start out with a freshly cleaned car, swearing the kids will never eat in there, track mud in there, conduct scientific experiments in there, I always falter with time. My strength crumbles into the weakness that is fast food stops and hidden fruit snacks. My youngest once hid Cheetos in her pockets and, bless her, asked permission to eat them on the way to church.
When I bought my car (by “bought” I mean financed, trading in a leased Hyundai Santa Fe with heated seats that I found too small for our growing family thus incurring far more debt that both vehicles are now worth, hahaha jokes on me) I discussed the fact that I wanted to trade into a minivan with my husband and found one online that looked promising. He gave me the go ahead to “Go ahead and get it if it looks good.”
My first mistake was going to the dealer by myself. There were two big problems with this vehicle that I didn’t really think about because I was “buying” used. First of all, when I test drove it the van had just been delivered to the lot and not yet cleaned and had a funny, wet-dog-type smell. This was my only concern and I was assured by the salesman that they would detail the car and all of that would be gone. So when I picked it up, freshly clean, sparkly and with A/C blaring COLDair, it did smell like a new to me vehicle and clean.
I drove it over to my husband’s work, proud of myself for taking care of something all on my very own (they even sent via courier the paperwork over to his work to complete our joint signatures). The first thing that his co-workers and he noticed was that the tires were old and worn and would need to be replaced soon. I wouldn’t go so far as to say they were bald, but…but he and his coworkers did.
That alone made me feel like a prize idiot. A new car that needed tires….I hadn’t even looked at them.
Then, as the weather heated up, it was May at the time and we soon entered the hot Texas summer, the dog smell came back. I wondered if the only owner before me ran some sort of mobile dog washing service. It was a stow and go, after all. All the seats can fold down completely flat. Imagine that!
EVERY time he got in my car he’d comment on it. I washed it. I googled ways to clean out and disinfect the A/C vents thinking that would help but every time it gets hotter and every time I use the heater for the first time in a while, there it is, the stink. Add it to my list of things that I’m ashamed of. He not-so-affectionately refers to it as the “stink van” and when it’s really messy, like it was on last Saturday, he refuses to ride in it.
I mean, I don’t blame him. It gets gross. I get it, but the guy who drives a truck that often smells like “sweaty man” (because some of what he does requires a lot of labor outside in the elements so why wouldn’t his truck smell like a manly man? It makes sense! My car, filled with messy children is going to smell bad from time to time, it’s the nature of the business I do as well.) is too good to ride in my car. Ugh. I digress.
The thing is, my dear husband won’t understand the mess, even though he could bear witness to the three kids we call “professional mess makers”. They’re gosh darn good at making disgustingly, filthy messes and not caring one iota whether or not said messes are cleaned up or trampled through. (See previous blogs on soupy poops and glueing the dog).
Other moms, though, they get it. Other moms out there hear about my car and nod with understanding. They don’t visibly suppress vomit when I tell them that this time around I found out I can remove the center console to clean and vacuum underneath. I didn’t know that! It was like a time capsule! I really, disgusting time capsule! There was half a fudge stripe cookie, some playing cards from a kids meal (seriously, stop putting card games in kids meals and calling it a game, not cool fast food restaurants of the universe, not cool) and my husband’s first iphone circa 2008. Other moms don’t shudder when I wonder at kid-car-slime, how it’s amazingly both crunchy, sticky and crumbly like some sort of wonder substance I think all the scientists of the world might need to know about and analyze in their sciency laboratories.
I’ve said it before, there’s nothing like meeting a friend somewhere, another mother whom you respect and admire, who seems really so put together and when she opens her door you see almost the same identical mess in her car that’s in your own. You have to give a nod of respect to that. There are the same discarded Sunday School papers, the same corndog carcasses and dead donuts and you can, based on experience, gauge that she hasn’t had time to deal with it in a week or two and you know why. It’s because she’s just as strapped as you, putting aside even cleaning out a gross car for her children, their upbringing, their education, their attention and the time it takes to be present
She hasn’t had time because the mess is as we speak exponentially multiplying because the kids, the gymnastics, the dance, judo, karate, play dates, fun runs, homeschool activities, co-op, bible class and all the other stuff, doesn’t stop because you need to clean your car. That’s why you stopped for corn dogs in the first place.
So, ode to you, mother driving a car that makes you want to take a shower. I get it and I respect your efforts to power through. You’ll get it clean eventually, but in the meantime know two things. You’re right in prioritizing your kids first. You’re not alone. Lastly when you do finally get it clean lock the doors, take a picture and brace yourself for the coming onslaught of milk shakes spilled while driving on the freeway (because you wanted to cut loose and be the cool mom and let them have a treat in the car) and the old, dead French fries that take up resident in the secret, hidden recesses of you stow away seats and consoles like grizzled, wise old friends. They know that car is a home away from home; the vehicle of road trips, of day trips of fearful rides to the Urgent care when you prayed away your fear and smoothed over their own. Your kids do too, somewhere deep down. Maybe that's why they're so comfortable in there. Ha!
