Friday, August 15, 2008

Things that shouldn't be in my car but are

I've had way too much time on my hands this afternoon. In between cooking dinner, redesigning by blog, babysitting, and trying to wrangle my own children, I've been reading lots of other's blogs. Just clicking from link to link figuring if someone I enjoy reading thinks this person is worth reading, maybe I'll like them too.

I came across this.

Whiskey In My Sippy cup is having a nifty little contest and giving away some febreze for the best what's that smell in my car contest. Oh, how I could relate. The things that have been left, brought, or found their way into my car are numerous. These are my faves.

The wax coated paper cups that when left in the car for more than a few hours disintegrate and allow their contents to fill the cup holders with fluid and depending on the amount in the cup prior to the cup failure create little Niagara Falls of soda all down the side of the car where the cup holder resides. This isn't so much smelly, but really messy, totally annoying and pretty much avoidable if the children would just listen when I tell them "these are the cups that will fall apart and make a mess if you leave them, please remember to take them with you when you exit the vehicle"

Banana peels. Sure a banana is a handy (and healthy) snack to take in the car when the children are running late for school and didn't have breakfast because they chose to goof off and not get ready in the morning, but by the time I've run a couple of errands after dropping them off that banana peel is rank.

The half a cheeseburger that was left crammed into a cup holder in the 3rd row seat and not discovered by me until it was petrified. I'm not kidding. Hard as a freaking rock. I asked the children how long it had been there and someone was sure it had been around one of the children's birthday three months prior.

The snail that Kimberly insisted on taking with her to theatre rehearsal. The one that had escaped her by the time we had gone three blocks. The one we searched the van for an hour trying to find. Really, how far could it have gotten, it's a snail!!! The one that I found the shell of when trading the van in 6 months later.

My big giant Jamba Juice mug that mysteriously disappeared. It had rolled under the passenger seat and got wedged under there. I should have known better than remove the lid to see how funky it was when I found it a month later.

The gallon of milk that rolled away from all the other groceries on the ride home from the store this summer. It found a nifty little hiding place for itself under one of the kid's seats. Apparently with five people unloading the groceries from the car, into two fridges, it'shockingly easy to not miss a gallon of milk. Until it starts getting funky in the lovely Arizona heat. Two days later when we were playing "What's that stank" we found it. The plastic jug all bloated and looking about to burst filled with vile yellow liquid no longer resembling moo juice inside. The rotten milk smell that the plastic jug was unable to contain filling the air in a 10 ft radius. Found the day AFTER trash day so I had to continue to smell it every time I took out a bag of trash for 6 days.

By far the worst though is the RAT that lived in my car for the better part of two weeks. I can't blame any of the children for his presence in my car though. It was a Volkswagen Cabriolet, the car that my friend Alisha lovingly calls a "Bitch Basket". I called it possessed. It was the definition of Murphy's Law. One night I left the top down when I parked it. I guess the rat decided that he wanted to cruise with the top down too. The next day after putting the top up, I went to back out of my driveway. In the rear view mirror I saw this black blur scurry across the back deck and then over the baby seat. I turned around and didn't see anything. Maybe it was just a shadow. I went about my day and that night parked the car all locked up tight. In the morning I found little droppings on my seat, a slight urine odor in the car, and a bunch of the insulation stuff from inside the dashboard all over the passenger side floor. I immediately started banging on the dash, making all kinds of noise, doing anything to try to scare the rat into fleeing. No sign of the little shit, but I knew he was there. The next day more droppings and the urine smell is getting worse. I go to Home Depot and buy some sticky rat traps. They are supposed to be more humane than snapping their little necks but who knows. I'm sure starving to death while you struggle to free yourself from a giant lake of goo is no picnic either. I wasn't really feeling charitable to Mr. Rat though, I just didn't want to add to the smells by adding rat blood and guts to the party. That night I left one trap on the driver's side and one on the passenger side floor. Right under where he seemed to be entering and making his little nest as evidenced by the insulation stuff that had been excavated every morning. Put a little bit of cheese to try to lure him to his sticky death. The next morning the traps were there, the cheese was not, and the rat was still living somewhere in my car. The next night I put more cheese, trying even more carefully to place it dead center of the trap so little Mr. Sneaky Pants couldn't get the cheese without getting stuck in the goo. Again that little bastard got the cheese and managed to remain alive. Finally after a couple of weeks of this, I parked the car where I thought the rat might find something else exciting and left it, top down, windows rolled down, doors open. Left it there all day. I was only slightly worried that someone might steal it. That would have really been preferable to continue to share it with a rat. Being that it was the possessed car though, nobody stole it, and I had to drive it home that night. Thankfully though, the rat had decided to move on to greener pastures at some point that day. I never saw him again.

3 comments:

Bethalea said...

bwaaahahahahaaaa! god, you crack me up! i love the blog, i think its awesome.

xo

b

Mr Lady said...

OH MY GOD. I would freak the hell out if I found a R.A.T. in my car. My kid, of course, would be all "Wittle Chef! He So CUUUUTE."

I leave paper cups in my car ALL THE TIME, too! It's soooo super gross.

Banana. Heee heee. I've done that, too.

And the milk? Kind of made me want to die a little. :)

LenaLoo said...

Um... you win hands down, and I didn't even read the others! Lol...