Okay, okay, so I already did the contents of my purse before & after kids post and this is the same idea. Before kids = empty, while after kids = clutter explosion. You get it.
But I have to write this post. I need to publicly share the contents of the car mobile trashcan parked in my driveway. Because the first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem.
And I have a problem.
The contents of my car before I had kids:
Yeah, I know that is just the trunk. I have no idea how to draw the inside of a car. So here is the trunk. Just pretend.
My car had an emergency kit (one of those pre-packaged ones that was six years expired) and also an umbrella. That was all. The trunk was a massive dark cave of emptiness. The way trunks are meant to be.
And here are the contents of my car, after having kids:
Again, just the trunk. Go ahead and visualize the rest of the car similarly packed with primary colored detritus. Because it is.
Sure, there are things like a stroller, sand toys and extra diapers. That is all normal.
But this stuff? Not normal:
Extra clothes (pants, shirts, socks) for a newborn. It has been 2 years since I had one of those. However, the next time I encounter a situation where a newborn needs a pair of pants? I will save the day.
Three pairs of shoes that do not fit my kids. We go shoe shopping. They get new shoes. Exciting! They wear them out of the store. Old shoes go in car. No motivation to take them in the house because nobody needs to wear them. So the old shoes lay in the new shoes' boxes. Like cardboard coffins buried under jackets and blankets in the trunk. Forever. (Okay, not forever, I just wanted to be dramatic. The reason there are 3 pairs and not 4 is because the toddler grew into a pair outgrown by his older bro.)
A box of donation stuff from the last post-holiday purge, as in ten months ago. I have more boxes in the garage to donate and that is the problem. You see, I don't want to drop this box off until I have those boxes in my car. But the only time I remember to put those boxes in the car is when I'm already in the car and not at home.
So that should give you a good indication of how often I clean out my car.
Receipts, coffee cups, petrified snacks, toys, sweaters, hats, blankets, baby carriers, towels, sand, rocks and branches? Yes. Just, yes.
So, I hereby declare this to be "clean out your crappy car" day. I'm going to do it.
Anything in your car that shouldn't be?
—————–
Wait! Before you go clean out your car, there are only 3 days left to vote for me for "Funniest Mom Blog" so, ahem, please?
For those of you who already voted, thank you!
For those of you who are going to go vote right now, thank you!
For those of you who aren't going to vote no matter how much I bug you? We're cool. I'm just glad you're here. But seriously, please?
Oh yeah! THAT’S what I was supposed to be doing instead of wasting time online while my son naps! Cleaning out my car! Especially today, considering he was eating those little freeze-dried yogurt things while simultaneously pouring his water all over his lap while I was driving this morning. His seat is covered in yogurt-goo and I’m sitting here…huh. Ok, off to clean the car.
Here’s why I voted for you even though they make you register (argh!).
It takes 3 minutes. Seriously. Three.
You’ve given me more than 3 minutes of entertainment.
Here it is in math form:
my 3 voting minutes < the pleasure you’ve given me
And THAT’S what we call a win!
P.S. My car is beyond hope, so spending time on blog math equations TOTALLY makes sense.
Sounds exactly like my car! Although my car also includes wads upon wads of dried out, used (for hands and faces) baby wipes that are stuffed in every crevice my car has to offer. Also, candy wrappers (because on the rare opportunities I get to grocery shop by myself, I always get a candy bar to enjoy on the car ride home).
Yay! You mathematically proved why people should vote for me!
I have SO voted for you!
In my car for several years (even made the transition from old car to new car): one giant trash bag of kids meal toys. Keep in mind, I JUST had my first child 6 months ago. But I have a sealed up bag of happy meal toys just hanging out in my cargo area, waiting for I-don’t-know-what. Will probably be there until he is old enough to actually play with them.
Lol! That pretty much describes mine, except I have a tremendously large SUV with even more room to put more crap. I have an entire “car” bag of useless items, including a plastic megaphone that I think will one day come in “handy”.
i actually wanted to clean out my car today, ill let you know what i find…
My husband is just waiting for the inevitable ant infestation that will come when the little critters finally figure out how many smashed goldfish, pretzels, and fruit snacks are lost under the back seats. LOL!
And I have toys that were meant to dangle from the handle of a infant seat carrier in the door pocket for easy access. We haven’t used an infant carrier in over a year. And I’ve gotten a new car since then – so the worst part is that they TRANSFERRED from the old car to the new one! Augh….
oh and p.s., been voting for you everyday. I went and checked out the competitions site, you’re funnier. Is that a word? I don’t know. Do I care? No, it’s how I feel.
Our car is awful, all the same crap…except the shoes, we are only on our second pair. We also have the base to the infant seat he outgrew months ago, not the seat just the base. Also two strollers for one kid. No idea why. It just accumulates and sometimes I think other people put their stuff in their figuring we won’t notice because there’s already so much crap in there!!
yup… my car is pretty much in the same predictiment (SP). currently there is a bike in the bike. that, yes, my child can ride. i also have a trashbag that is overflowing & the garbage litters the passenger side floorboards. i’m pretty sure my vehicle ate an outfit last november & i’ve not seen hide nor hair of it since
on a good note b/c i carry the imfamous “giganto-bag” i was able to save a lil’ one from going home mid-bday party b/c i had extra clothes… to which i tell my hubby “see! all this extra stuff came in handy heheh”
i’m a single mom of a now 1 year old so it’s hard to be able to throw stuff away that’s in my car. I’d have to leave my baby in the car and take the stuff to the dumpster. Thats not going to happen so my car tends to have weird stuff in it for long periods of time.
i was recently able to clean it out, but the trunk got filled with lots of junk. there is a huge mess of stuff in the trunk from when i was pregnant and went back and forth from ex’s (baby’s father)’s house to my place. No free time to clean it and no help watching the little one.
I’ve found these things in my car over this past year of being a mom: reaaaaalllly old moldy croissant in a ziplock bag, really moldy mystery food in a tupperware container, some kind of electronics, melted makeup, strange goo in cupholder where i keep random little thingies like hair clips and bracelets.
Various food wrappers, also petrified snacks (aren’t those the BEST??), school supplies (apparently not needed at school and rather used in the car for coloring to and fro), child size 12 flip flops, melted crayon, empty Go Girl cans & empty Big Gulp cups (from much needed caffeine/energy days), three bags of recyclables from work to go into the bin at home (why can’t we just have a bin at work for crying out loud??) and one bag of clothes to donate, which, like you, is waiting for another bag or two to join it before I drop them off…because why make two trips when you can drive around with a huge bag in your car for many months instead, amiright?
Your math made so much sense to me I got off my lazy proverbial butt and reg/voted
WEll, it’s 9.3- pm here, and I have a lot of work to do that I’m still putting off, so no, I won’t go clean the car now. But oh my god, it’s not a pretty sight.
It’s raining cats and dogs outside today. That’s why I can’t participate in Clean Your Car Out Day. That’s a good excuse, right?
After finally getting the time to go through and register for the awards thing and them being a pain in the arse with every little detail I finally finish and the site goes down GAH!! So I still haven’t voted!!
Funny! I cleaned out my car 2 days ago for the first time in I-don’t-know-how-long. My floor mat was so dirty a quarter was STUCK to it. I had a giant laundry basket overflowingly full of crap from inside my car that needs to be put away inside my house. (It is still in the basket.) That doesn’t include all the trash that I (finally) threw away.
And in the laundry basket are some sippy cups that I’ll probably just throw away. Cleaning them in their current state sounds like way too much of a hassle.
Yes, that must be what is going on! Other people are breaking into my car and putting stuff in there.
Totally. There’s also geological layers of granola crumbs, between school papers and construction paper projects, glued together with spilled milk and water…
I haven’t cleaned out my car since it’s been in my possession-8 months ago I took it from my husband. I got in the car today and it smells like something died in it… I’m too scared to clean it out!! But I do know it has 3 strollers, 3 for one baby!!
Alright, you convinced me, and I would rather spend 3 mins voting than cleaning out my car. My daughter is 6! Yes SIX! And I am pretty sure I have some newborn clothes/shoes in my car from SIX years ago…Yes, I procrastinate. *nods to self*
Speaking of Petrified Food, my sister once stuck a McDonalds french fry in the a/c vents in the front seat of the car to cool off the french fry (this was like 20 yrs ago back when it was legal for kids younger than ten to ride up front).
The Petrified McDonalds French Fry sat there, visible, sitting just inside in the A/C vent for most of the 12 years we drove that car.
The worst for me is that I lost a 20 dollar bill in my car 6 months ago and despite trying to clean out the car several times I STILL haven’t found it. Maybe it crawled into the dirty socks that seem to always be in my van.
How about ants from the Dairy Queen Blizzard cup left in the back seat floor board by the kids. (Ok, I confess, it was really my Blizzard cup…)
Hooray! Jessica, please come to my house and model listening for my kids. You could make a real difference in their lives. (And, doesn’t Amber deserve this? Yes!)
Oh and we can’t forget the melted crayon on the seat.
You convinced me! And I was already registered!!! 17 more votes and your 1st!!!!
My car is the only thing I own that’s somewhat organized! YAY! No toys/food aloud inside the car, still working on the trunk, but looking good! My house…now that’s a different story..but I decided I needed one place clutter free and the car looked like an easy start!
Before I had kids I would think, “How hard can it be to clean some Cheerios out of your car??” Now that I have to schlep 2 small kids, a 76lb diaper bag, a thermal bag with food and drinks and whatever Hot Wheels/books/rocks etc that my toddler declares, “Mommy needs to carry!” I wish I could go back in time and yell at my smug 20 something self, “IT’S NOT THAT EASY!!! I DON’T HAVE ANY EXTRA HANDS TO CARRY ANYTHING ELSE INTO THE HOUSE!!” This is my justification for the 2 week old grilled cheese I found tucked behind a carseat…
How about this. For my birthday last weekend my hubs decided to clean out my car as a present for me. He was gone for 4 hours. You’d think with that amount of time gone, he’d have detailed the bugger until it was shiny and new again…but it wasn’t. There’s still some kind of “stick” on every surface of the interior. Boo. Oh, and I bought one of the fancy schmancy convertible seats for my youngest but still haven’t installed it. It’s been over a month. I’m waiting until I can get my car cleaned again.
Wah! I don’t think I can vote. Firstly, the website has trouble believing that I’m not from the USA. Then secondly, once I make up a ZIP code and pick a state at random, it just tells me that the website’s not available
If there’s a difference of 1 in the final results, you can at least know that you would have won, as I would have voted!
Oh my gosh! That’s an even better math equation, Jennie!
I need an infinity sign.
3 minutes voting [INFINITELY GREATER THAN] cleaning out a car
Nice work!
I used to have a no-food-in-the-car rule. That was before I had a 30 min commute with a toddler. Now there are cheerios and goldfish and blueberries and unidentifiable things everywhere. Not to mention milk stains from when he threw his sippy cup and the top came off unexpectedly. And, of course, the SMELL. That was definitely not there before kids!!
voted : ) Thanks for making me smile!
got you all beat! I traded in my car in April and while cleaning it out so I would not be embarrassed ~ I found newborn clothes and my boys turned 14 & 15! Yikes!!
Right now there’s a bag of dog food (that’s actually cat food, that I bought by accident for my dog) and I’ve been meaning to return it for weeks. So far my dog seems to be surviving!
No, I think I have y’all beat… um… (don’t tell anyone)… dried chunky puppy vomit that I didn’t notice for days and in the three digit numbers of the summer heat, it became concrete on/in the carpet. I knocked a little of it off the top in a parking lot and left the rest because I keep forgetting about it until I get back in the car in a rush to run out somewhere…
Yeah, I can’t believe I just confessed that…
You are incredibly funny! Just voted – even though I’m not a parent yet (not that I am aware of!) and had to register (eeeek!)
i started laughing just reading the title of this post. holy geez its insane how much crap gets accumulated just in 2 weeks time in our car. glad to know there are other moms who dont have pristine cars after kids!
You are so funny! Petrified snacks! I remember the time when my son was a toddler that we went to mcdonald’s and I thought…hmmm, he sure finished his burger quickly.
Fast forward 3 months and where was the burger? Under the car seat of course! (Intact, just hardened. EEw.)
OMG, just bought my son his first pair of new shoes last night. Previously he just had the soft soled moccasin like shoes which are now… on the floor in the back seat of the car.
Just voted and you are only 5 behind #1. Love your posts!
No one wants to know what the heck is in the van… Even me… plus it’s cold out side and I’m doing laundry.
Also, VOTE! Last check only 4 vote difference. Come on kids! Don’t let Amber down!
I just went and voted
I’ve registered with 3 emails. Mouahahahaha.
Yes, just yes. I am again @ my desk @ work trying to NOT LMAO!
We outgrew our fun sports car, because seriously Brittany you can’t fit 3 car seats in the back of a mustang you can’t even get your pregnant ass back there to buckle the two carseats already in there! (Yes I talk to myself and sometimes cuss at myself too, lol), so now we have a mini van and it is WAY TOO MUCH space to hide all the junk I don’t want to clean out.
The last time I cleaned out my car I actually removed my toddlers carseat to clean under it….there was a ring of green stuff, looked like algae, where the base touches the seat. Got it cleaned but I think it is forever stained. The worst part? I bought a seat protector for my new car back when my almost 2 year old was only 3 months old.
Found in the Lazy-Susan storage compartment in my mini-van:
A US Road Atlas dated 1987
Size NB (newborn) diapers (kids are 7 & 9 now)
Several extra surgical/germ masks from when we had the Swine Flu outbreak
A box of dried out baby-wipes
Two empty Chap-Stick tubes which were once filled,
Lots and lots of glitter remenants from past art projects
Burp Cloths – I THINK they are clean
What a mess….
Big SUV = more crap to accumulate. I threw an empty frozen margarita bucket into the car, thinking hey, excellent puke receptacle (should the need arise) equipped with a lid. Little did I know that the hubs saw it as a trash receptacle for a half-eaten banana, which I found about 7 months later.
Just voted! You’re ahead by 8!!!! Woot!!
My car WAS so gross. Just cleaned it this weekend and took out – I am not kidding – a lawn-sized trash bag of garbage.
But the worst was a few years back when my oldest was a baby and I found – I am not kidding – dead MAGGOTS in her carseat.
Worst. Mother. EVER.
My daughter (8 months old) ended up on a trip to run errands with me a few weeks ago…without a paci. This should have resulted in a trip back to the house so that we did not have a screaming baby for two straight hours. But, in a rare moment of blind luck, the fact that I obviously havent cleaned out my car since my 4 year old was an infant (he stopped taking a paci at 6 months) came in super-handy. From the depths of a pocket in the car door came a long-ago lost paci (very blue in color) that was still in good enough shape to be used. A quick wash with a wet ones and rinse in the sink and we were good to go! Errands done, happy baby, happy momma!
(And before anyone says so, I know she should have given it up by now but she is child number 2 so we take all the help we can get.)
My van is so nasty. I actually took out all the toys, etc to have it detailed and washed!! Yeah me!
Only when i get it back, I notice that there’s still sticky fingerprints on the windows, and a half-chewed banana peeking out at me from under the car seat.
Nice.
Today…well, today it’s just back in it’s original nastified condition. Again.
I LOVE your blog, you make me feel normal lol I must say my truck is awful, i remember when my oldest was younger i was off to work and didn’t realize that he went to daycare and forgot his bottle and it was summer and lets just say i had a mystery smell for a few days and finally found that bottle LOL tossed it for sure
Its clean out your crappy car day here too! I had already declared that I was going to do it today, but you have just given me more motivation.
Amber, you are now in the lead by 37 votes, one of which is mine.
Your blog always makes me smile. I *try* to keep my car as clean as I can because we live near a wooded area. If I don’t keep it clean, I find “presents” left behind by field mice who have gotten in and eaten up the crumbs I’ve left behind. Nasty nasty mice.
YAY! I voted
My car is pretty *read-not really* clean but that is due to the Husband and his tendency to eat fast food at a pace a ravenous wild animal would be jealous of. The nasty part? The car seat. It is covered in crumbs, juice, sticky hand prints from the sucker I gave him to keep him quiet, and other unmentionables that cannot even be classified anymore.
ha! great timing on this post – guess what i just did last night? some things i discovered:
- 3 pairs of headphones (funny – was just looking for ONE pair 2 nights previously and ended up using the tiny sized toddler pair)
- my school id (you know, the one i need to access his daycare on campus, aka the one i had to have replaced twice already and then lost again but felt too embarrassed to ask for yet another copy, so instead stand outside the daycare door until someone else with a card comes through and lets me in)
- two baby socks, although not a pair – just the missing halves to two other missing halves already in the house
- the purple paint. and my old white mittens. or what i’d now like to call my new purple mittens.
and my hubby thinks i am the only one……to be honest i have NO idea what is in my car right now cuz i don’t care. it doesn’t smell at the moment so i just figure i’m good…
My car needs professional help. Juice, ice cream, crumbs, toys … you name it! lol. Oh, and 75 pounds of military gear (mine!) in the back.
And of course I voted!
Amber, I know all about crazy stuff in the car, but as for the donation box, join Freecycle! You post stuff on your local freecycle site and they come to your house to get it! You don’t have to remember to bring it anywhere. You can also get stuff you need that way, but for me I’ve been working on decluttering my house under the premise “Yey, someone else can use it!” Totally worth it
just a thought
-Tanya
because I have a little girl I have a portable potty in my trunk. I have been tempted to use it myself a time or two, but have not.
I have.
My car is currently not too bad…mostly cuz it’s new. But I recently got it back from being in the shop. We had left one of those McDonald’s milk jugs in it and some spilled on the carpet. Now the entire car smells like spoiled milk…awesome.
My car is clean right now becuase I hardly drive it :/ my spouse does lol
My trunk is a diaster, it has toy,clothes old sippy cups, mind you the clothes I didnt even want and they are for me only like 18 sizes bigger then my fat ass.
Totally voted!
you actually just described, to a tee, the contents of my car. the shoes! oh the shame. i love your blog. the concept is really fantastic and you are hilarious.
I call my car the “mobile sty.” To be fair to my son, it was pretty bad before he came along. I drive 45 minutes each way to work, so I have a sever case of commuter car. The crap in my car has just gotten a more kid-friendly vibe (formerly: bags, shoes, sweaters, many, many old printed out google directions; currently: sippy cups, shoes given by a friend that are going to fit him in a year or 2, miniature strainer that daycare let him take home because he was pitching a fit about leaving it. . .)
Also, I voted! Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts with all of us!!
I think you just described a normal person’s car. Which highlights the fact that my OCD-ness means that I clean out my car every time we hop out of it. I even run back to it with the handheld vac sometimes. Oh, who am I kidding. I run out there with a handheld vac once like every 3-4 months, when I am finally disgusted to be eating the goldfish crackers off a thick layer of dirt.
BTW, voted for you. You rock.
The thing that really amazes me is how fast it gets dirty again. It only takes like 3 days and it is just as full as you have described.
Cleaned out both my car and my hubby’s… mine wasn’t horrible, mostly reciepts and wrappers and stuff. My husbands on the other hand, had over 100 pop cans and bottles, clothes he wore over a year ago that were covered in mud. And then there are all the toy cars that reproduce when left to their own devices. Boys are so much fun (both the grown and not grown)
I have no kids, but in my trunk….a) a box of sexy bachelorette type gifts – that I won in a basket at my cousin’s bridal shower, and was going to regift to her at her bachelorette party…but then thought she might get mad, 2) an 8 foot city-scape that I made for a superhero themed party over a year ago (so we could fly across the sky and take pictures) and 3) a “what to expect when you are expecting” book that a friend gave me a year ago when I told her we were trying to get pregnant (still haven’t been pregnant). Probably time to clean out my trunk, too.
Our car is also in a sad state, and I too have chosen to vote rather than cleaning it out, as that seems to be the general concensus of time well spent
Luckily for me, we have only one car. One car + one child + one husband = clean car, believe it or not.
That was an awesome picture of a car with stuff in it. Not crappy at all. We took our car to the garage the other day and I think the man there cleaned out of pity that a car could be neglected so terribly. He made a nice little pile of things in the back seat (and I had spent ages cleaning it so it would look okay for the mechanics!)
i’ve had that happen. and it was on MY seat! awesome. i rode around for about a year with a tea towel on the set because i was convinced that the heat from my butt sitting on the seat would re-melt the wax and leave me with a lovely crayon-length smudge on the seat of my pants. and you know it HAD to be a brown crayon!
i have! we keep one under the seat (MAJOR LIFESAVER! everyone with small kids should keep a little potty in the car!), and one time, at my oldest’s baseball game in FRIGID temps where i’d drank too much hot cocoa to keep from turning into a popsicle, i HAD to go. no way around it, i HAD to go. so i went to the car, thanked the LORD for tinted windows, and peed in the little potty. i was afraid it would overflow! LOL! okay, that’s the first time i’ve admitted that!
My husband found some fuzzy probably mold stuff in my car so he cleaned! Of course half the mess was his, he puts bales of hay in my car. Does that win for crap that shouldn’t be in your car?
This is so my car! What’s worse is I have a van! The car my husband usually drives smells like something died in it, but once you are in it long enough you get used to it so there is still no motivation to clean it….and with winter coming and no garage it may be months before we come clean. And the donation clothes? Yup – garbage bags full in the back just waiting for me to remember to drop them off. I put them in the car so they wouldn’t clutter up the house….
You convinced me, too! Our van tends to have a lot of random sticks and rocks in it, too – my 4 year-old is always picking more up on hikes. Oh well, at least they stay in the van and don’t come in the house too often (the sticks and rocks…not my toddlers).
By pure coincidence I DID (kinda) clean my car today. My 2 1/2 yr old was beyond thrilled that I found his “favorite” trucks. They were so buried under the mess that we had forgotten they were there!
Ack, my car is horrendous. Let’s not talk about my car.
But I did post a link to your voting page on a popular baby forum I’m on. Let’s hope some of them click your link and love your hilarity as much as I do, so they can vote for you!
For mothers day, my 4 year old and husband cleaned out my car when I was out with my husbands car. I was thrilled when I came home and my son was so excited to show me my cleaned out car~ not quite as thrilled when I walked in the house to find my kitchen table piled full of all the junk from my car.
There is so much crap in my car. Don’t even get me started on the crumbs. I used to pride myself on a clean car, now I’m lucky if I don’t have lollypop stuck to the back of my seat.
Laughing because I just cleaned out my “garbage barge” today! I couldn’t stand it anymore! Interesting finds: chunks of obsidian, empty coffee thermos, bag of rocks, a ton of receipts and Michael’s coupons, enough jackets to warm up a 3rd world country, empty Vita-rain bottles, but alas no soccer shin guards. They are lost in the abyss that is known as my tween daughter’s room!
We cleaned out the car a few days ago before a get-together with family. We don’t want them to see what the car REALLY looks like!! There was peanut butter sandwich crust in there, among about a trash can full and trash bag full of stuff. It took $5 ($1 per use of the machine) to vacuum it, too. Let’s see, some other things in the car included, toys, rocks, trash, money, books, strollers (2), trash, shopping cart seat cover, my coupon book, trash, dirty clothes, soccer socks. Oh, I think there may have been some trash as well.
Oh, how perfect because just today I was completely *mortified* when my middle-schooler’s principal (a former colleague of mine) peered into my suv this afternoon while toddler and I waited for him. Um, maybe she didn’t notice the 3 pairs of toddler socks, pair of sandals, array of hats, cupcake wrapper, water bottle, gum, crumpled paper, snack wrappers, receipts, used tissues, bag of clothes that need returning, THREE soccer balls, random clothing items, an open box of crackers, lunch box, and books. Probably not because I’m sure she was distracted by the SEVEN garbage bags of clothes I need to donate. Oh, but the three lawn chairs were on top of them. Did I mention the huge pumpkin I had just crammed into the back? The groceries?
I’ve voted, of course. Thank you for so many laughs! you capture each and every truth of motherhood!!!
This is weird: I have tons of tissue paper in my car. It’s from those days when we have a birthday party and I don’t have time to run home and wrap the gift. If I’m lucky, a half hour before the party, I run to the store, buy the gift, the bag, and MORE tissue paper! – because I forget about the reams of tissue paper I already have in my car!
OMG I voted too just so I could avoid thinking about cleaning out my car….
ok, I broke down and registered so I could vote because of Beth Woolsey’s mathmatical logic–even though my kids don’t count as kids on the Parents magazine site (because they are too old–the kids–not the magazine). Anyway, I love your blog because your bring back memories of my life 15 years ago–I loved that time.
Our van is a rolling garbage pit. One day last summer, when I was fed up with shifting through the unbelievable variety of crud in there trying to figure out what smelled bad, I just opened both doors and took the leaf blower to it. Worked great! (but then I had to clean all the wrappers, papers, old gym socks, etc, etc, etc off of the driveway and lawn.)
And the van stayed tidy for all of about 24 hours….
Ironically, I read this right after cleaning out our car of similar junk. Must have been in the air.
I swear you must have cameras in my house (and car!). Your posts are so timely! Just today after spilling coffee in the car, I spent half an hour cleaning random crap out of the interior, and your inventory was spot on, right down to the too-small shoes and long forgotten box of donation stuff. Hahaha!
I am a married 60 y-o mother of 4 grown children, and gramma of 2 beautiful little girls and a baby boy due at Christmas – and altho I never comment on blogs, that ends right now. I had to tell you I haven’t laughed (and cried) so hard over something online in a LONG time. Trust me (you can, I’m a mom after all), you will remember all this stuff till…well, forever. Thank you Amber (and to my daughter, for sending you to me), now I gotta go vote for you.
So true! And I’m a science teacher as well as a mom of 2, so add a bunch of old paperwork (not kids’ assignments, but other random school-related stuff), a poster of the human genome, a set of pulleys, and two-year-old lard. Yes, lard. I swear it made sense at the time.
Boy Child decided the perfect receptacle for his barely-chewed gum is the inside handle on his side.
Goldfish crackers stuck in the seat belt holes? Yep.
And there’s always an odd, phantom odor emanating from one of the carpets that despite multiple attempts as shampooing, comes back. And haunts me.
Oh – and GC’s science fair project board is still in the back – from last May.
love it! mine has 3 beach umbrellas… who needs 3? and i’m only on my first baby LOL
Oh yes-mystery moldy food-always one of the fun games when cleaning out the car! It generally starts with the odd smell that you assume is just the kid having a gassy night, but realize after a couple 90º days that it is something actually in residence and it won’t stop reeking until you remove it. Then you have to search for the offending radioactive mass. The kids cheer as you find the lump of *insert gross descriptors here* and the game of “What was that in its former life?” ensues. Good times…
Hahaha, this is great because I just cleaned out my car two days ago. It wasn’t THIS bad–I did clean it out at the beginning of the Summer, ya know–but it was pretty bad. The most surprising discoveries:
Over half the sippy cups my daughter owns (with juice that was fermented and fuzzy inside)
Lighting McQueen toy (how did I not know this was missing? She LOVES him!)
My fiance’s parents’ GPS
TONS of extra diapers that I didn’t know were missing
Plus a multitude of clothes, animal crackers, Craisins, etc.
Three big Wal-mart bags went into the trash, two came back inside the house XD Now to clean the stains out of our seats…
Hooray!
Ha ha ha the shoes – cast off old ones after a trip to the shoe shop – we have exactly the same thing in my car. I do periodically pull up by a bin and empty out all the actual rubbish, you know, the wrappers, and sticks and rocks etc, but that still leaves the cast off clothing, toys, Tupperware containers, things I don’t actually want to throw out but lack the energy to bring down to the house from the car because that would mean I have to actually wash them and put them away. We also get piles of sand that make it into the car (we live very close to the beach). The sand in particular drives my husband crazy as it will apparently ruin the leather seats, and he hates the food crumbs. He tries to instigate a no eating in the car rule. No eating in the car? What? Is he mental? How on earth will I enforce that? Needless to say I utterly ignore him.
My car is disgusting. It contains a selection of old dried-hard crusts of vegemite sandwiches, bits of cheese stuffed down the sides of the car seats, about 8 baby blankets (I take a new one to the car every time we go on a long trip and then they all get left in there), a wide variety of toys scattered on the floor and amusingly a ‘car organiser’ stuffed into the back pocket of the drivers seat
My scariest moment is when my 2 year old starts eating something and I have not given him a snack. I ask, “What are you eating?” He responds, “Popcorn.” Only I know I have not given him popcorn in the car for at least a week. Gross.
Then there are the times that he is screaming and finds food in his car seat that is old and I don’t even care because it makes him stop screaming.
Thanks for your blog. Going to vote now.
My dad is appalled by my car. He sneakily cleans it when I’m not looking. I don’t mind, but am kinda embarrassed. I try to explain that I have three in carseats/boosters, so they just kinda chuck things on the ground. And when I go into the house, I have my arms full of kids/groceries/diaper bags/etc. Sometimes the chickens jump into the van (because they KNOW the pickings are good on the van floor)…yuck.
I just cleaned out my van yesterday. I couldn’t take it anymore! Old cracker crumbs and french fries smashed into car seats, tissues everywhere, hay (from the scare crow we made at the farm), a random spoon, really old half-full juice boxes, and God knows what else in the compartments beneath the floor (I didn’t venture that deep). I usually always have a super large garbage bag full of clothes for donation that take MONTHS to actually pull up to a clothing bin and donate them. All that crap and more but not one single diaper any where in the car when I need it.
I’m pretty sure you just described my car exactly. I should seriously do something about that… I think we clean our car out maybe once a year… probably less.
Yeah, so I cleaned my car out before an out-of-town wedding in August. So this is what has ended up in there since then:
4 items that need to be returned to stores. One of them was a CHRISTMAS present I will now have to take to a resale shop. At least 5 pairs of shoes randomly loose in the car, one is my cute black heels from the wedding. Food containers from my lunches. Paid bill paperwork. A huge box of shoes my LO does not fit into yet. A box of diapers. At least 2 umbrellas (besides the one I carry in my tote bag). Many, many stale Cheerios, which doesn’t make sense because I don’t usually let them eat in the car. A Christmas present for this year for my oldest, under a towel so she doesn’t see it. A snow shovel and windshield scraper, which live in my car year-round. Approximately half of my LO’s pairs of socks. Several shopping bags of dirty jammies. About 100 straw wrappers from McD’s Frappes. An EMPTY car organizer. Various toys from kid’s meals at fast-food restaurants. Several are “boy” ones because people think my oldest is a boy (she has short hair). Reusable shopping bags for the grocery store, which NEVER get used because I never remember them. Amber… are you sure you’re not my sister?
I refer to my car as the “water bottle and goldfish graveyard”. I know if we were ever trapped in a snowstorm, there are enough half filled water bottles and goldfish bodies on the floor to feed us for days.
I can’t beat the dead maggots someone mentioned above but I was still very grossed out when I found mouse dropping on the seats and center console. The little buggers actually got into the car several times and ate part of my emergency sweater (you know, the simple black cardigan that can be either dressy or casual so you have something to wear when you get some place and you’re not dressed right cause you never had time to check the forecast before you left). The rodents in my garage have also packed various parts of the car’s engine with nuts/acorns and insulation foam (from the garage walls). I’m glad it’s a detached garage!
Lol!! I have that box of donations permanently in my car too! I only remember as I try to fit the groceries in.
Oh my gosh! That’s an even better math equation, Jennie! I need an infinity sign. So true! And I’m a mom of 2, so add a bunch of old paperwork a poster of the human genome, a set of pulleys, and two-year-old lard.
Okay, first off LOVE your blog! And your other blogs, which I more recently discovered. Anyway, I have not read through all of the comments, but wanted to say, you know you can call Goodwill and they will pick up your donations? Actually most charities will if you are not into Goodwill. Just a thought. I can’t imagine ever having the right mind to drop something off anywhere LOL.
My husband asks me that ALL the time “why don’t you just bring it inside?! my car is perfectly clean” – well you are right, there are no extra hands for garbage when you are carry 2 kids, 4 bags, 3 coats, a purse, and the random bag of groceries! (sometimes I see if I can get it all in one trip just for fun)…
I voted for you!!!!!
& the trunk of my car currently contains a bag of old clothes my sister gave me in June, a tent, 3 books and a gift box from a large set of pokemon cards.
Also a snow brush & emergency kit, but they belong there.
hilarious. I don’t have any extra shoes. BUT I do have lots of random socks. None are *clean* because they’ve all been worn. And my kidlets love to take off their socks and shoes in the van… I force them to put the shoes back on or at least carry them inside. But the socks? nope – scattered throughout. Ugh. And I am ashamed to admit I have 3.75 diaper bags. 1 big one that I hardly ever use, 1 for the gym’s kidzone, 1 for the church nursery. And my purse, which is technically a diaper bag but I use it as a purse because it’s cute. But it still has diaper bag stuff in it so that’s the .75 in the above reference. :/
After I read the first page I had been directed to I voted. And thank jeebus you talked about the car. I’m finding toys that are from FOREVER ago! There was a forgotten sandwich hiding (probably from the evil toys and bag of gift wrapping my frugal mom gave me) under the overhang of the seat. Spare diapers, wipes, I’m sure a sippy or two. Thank you for talking about this stuff. It’s hilarious and it’s nice to be able to relate with someone (I have very few mommy friends to talk with) So thank you for talking about this stuff.
We’re working on selling our car, so I actually just cleaned mine out before I read this! Ultimate success!
Although, since I was just trying to get stuff out, I just took the double stroller out of the trunk, set it up, and then dumped everything from toys to car seats to gum wrappers inside. And then pushed the stroller just inside our back door and left it right there with all the junk in it. So maybe it doesn’t really count.
that is now my new excuse for having a car full of crap. I cleaned out my car during the summer, vacuumed out all the crumbs, rocks, picked up every piece of paper, sorted it into garbage or recycling. It was beautiful for about 3 hours. Now it’s back to ‘normal’.
LOL I have a “car organizer” too! AND a big long centre console (we have a van). The organizer is rarely touched and mostly empty, while the console gets stuffed with garbage, receipts, snack bags, pens, hair ties, napkins (new and used), and a couple spare diapers. LOL @ “petrified snacks”! We definitely have those! The sad thing is that our youngest daughter sees cookie crumbs and half-crackers, and picks them up and shoves them into her mouth before I can say “Yuk! Don’t do that sweetie!” 3 kids aged 3 & under = no time to clean out car. I miss my clean, empty, leathery Audi!
*sigh*
My husband had to replace the back seat floor carpet TWICE because of leaky sippy cups full of milk that are thrown from carseats, roll under the front seat and get forgotten, and quickly make my car smell like cheese. That’s right, folks. That’s all I’m gonna say. And I’m going to go vote RIGHT NOW because 1. Your blog rocks and 2. You used the word detritus and that is just awesome.
How on earth do you manage to ride in a mustang with TWO carseats? Is your partner super short? In our mustang, I have my knees touching the dashboard to make room for the rear-facing infant seat on the passenger side. If the car seat were on the driver’s side, the car would be undriveable!
Heehee that’s funny I was supposed to clean my van out yesterday when it was nice out… Now its raining.. Oh well.. But I am SO happy to know my van isn’t the only messy one out there!
I remember one day going to lunch with coworkers – before I had kids. The woman driving explained “I just have to move the carseat out of the back”. As she did, a hailstorm of goldfish and random other hardened bits of food rained onto the backseat. As we drove to lunch I remember thinking “when I have kids I will never let my car look like this!” HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA The jokes on me, because you could probably feed a small county with the food bits you find in my van, not to mention the many toy parts that float around in there… it is in a pretty consistent state of chaos and I’ve come to accept it. Oh how things change!
LOL yep!
Nothing! It’s spotless inside!
But I just cleaned it out this weekend. I took out an entire black garbage back of garbage. And 2 newborn diapers and 7 newborn socks. The baby is 15 months.
Glad I’m not the only one who refers to my “vehicle” as the mobile trash can. Even worse – after switching one of those awful things with sliding doors on the side, the volumn of trash increased significantly
LOL
I keep picking up things on the side of the road that I plan to clean up before introducing to my house. Right now there’s an old red wagon, a large basket, and a bed tray (like for serving breakfast-in-bed… which we have no intention of using for that, but rather as a coloring tray… ah… breakfast-in-bed… I had that once…). This is a “loan” car from my grandfather, so along with the Kenny G CD, that I’m sure he was never able to hear, I also have a head lamp, a golf umbrella, a tool kit labelled “CarTools by Popop”, and a package of Efferdent.
The inside of our car was getting bad so as a way to fight it I decided to shell out the extra cash for the deluxe oil change where they vacuum out the inside of your car. They won’t do it if there’s crap all over the floors so it gets me to clean out (otherwise I’d be wasting money) the crap and then they suck up all the cheerios and gold fish crackers. (although all the crap inside the car usually ends up in a bag in the trunk…oh well at least the inside looks clean!)
This totally resonated with me, particularly the part about the clothes!! I just cleaned out my trunk the other day and realized that unless we were going clamming and my daughter instantly lost about 5 pounds, her “emergency” clothes were not going to be very helpful in any situation. As always, your posts are hilarious–thanks!
I’m glad I’m not the only one….and I have an extended version mini van to fill up…
Oh god… I only have one kid, and the backseat of our car is totally covered in assorted cereal (intact and crushed) and shredded junk mail. Every time I go to the car, I think,”how embarrassing, I need to clean this out!” but the second I leave the car, I forget all about it. Maybe at today’s naptime… maybe
Thanks for the laughs!
Okay. You win.
>
LOL!
YES!!! My husband’s car is not like this. But my car, you know, the “family” car is a pit! And can we please discuss the odor that my car has taken on as a result of this? It’s a distinct smell strictly unique to my car that is primarily composed of petrified fast food that I think my 3-year-old dropped in the floor on our last road trip (**think** because I can’t actually find evidence of it–presumably it’s buried somewhere in the backseat), but also aroma of dirty diaper (don’t ask, but let it be known that the diaper DID get thrown away) and a lingering scent of whatever air freshener I bought last in a sad attempt to mask this odor. I desperately want to take my car and get it washed and have it cleaned, but I realize that I have to clean it before I have it cleaned. It is simply too embarrassing to take it as-is.
You think we’d have better biceps!
What a relief! I thought I had to be the only one who always has a ‘to be donated’ box in my car…. that eventually gets dropped off…
Oh My God. Hilarious and true. You’ve described my car. Petrified snacks – oh yes we have those. There could be a family of mice living under the seats for all I know, eating those snacks. Thank you!!!
Guaranteed that almost every time my toddler climbs into the car, before she climbs up into her seat she stops, picks up some crumb of food off the floor, shows it to me with a smile on her face and pops it in her mouth. I’ve stopped caring what it is or how long it may have been there
finally got a chance to clean out the car. we found:
LOTS of homework papers, 3 McDonalds happy meal toys, 2 hot wheels cars, 2 blankets, a jacket for my 5 year old, a jacket for my 16 month old, 5 year olds shoes, McDonalds bag, 3 old McDonalds orange juice cups, lots of straw wrappers, dried crusty bananas stuck to the seat, 3 glass milk jugs i need to return to the store, a fishing pole, 4 “chair in a bag”s, a tie from a wedding we went to two months ago, walmart receipt, hanger, tags from clothes, DVD player for the car, jumper cables, lots of gum wrappers, lots of spare change, a teddy from when my son went to the hospital last weekend, two DIRTY flat diapers (ick), two wetbags with dirty diapers, a sucker wrapper STUCK in a cup holder, a chaing thing (not sure what it is, maybe for towing a car? its my husbands) a mountain dew bottle (also my husbands) a pair of my shoes, a pair of my boots, lipgloss (i dont remember the last time i wore lipgloss) parts of my slutty halloween costume i wore for our erotic fantasy store in our town to raise money for red cross (ironic im sure) legos, yes even legos make their way to my car, a laundry basket, and all of my reusable shopping bags.
Jen…you are the best! Every minute that you are NOT cleaning out the car, you get a chance to : eat,or sleep, or watch your kids, or talk to an adult (just for the fun of it), or make a friend laugh, as you describe what you have found inside your car!!! All those minutes add up over the years….
When my kids learned to drive,each one of them cleaned the car and kept it clean(I did not have to ask them to)…what a surprise THAT was!!!!
Ha Ha Ha…..real life!!!
I call my minivan The Filthmobile. That is it’s official name in our house. Every 4-6 months I take it and get it detailed and then drive it around ALONE for an hour and revel in the cleanliness before letting the carseats and filth-mongers back in.
How about those bags they give you to use at the grocery store instead of those plastic bags. I have about 5 of them in the car (among all the other things!) but always forget to take them in. They are just adding to the insanity…
I pulled 15 socks out of my car yesterday. Heaven only knows where sock #16 is. I chose to just ignore the books, toys, shoes, wrappers, wipes, jackets, etc. that are still there. Actually, we don’t ever take shoes out of the car. We just put them on the kids whenever we get to where we’re going, because they’re just going to pull them off in the car anyway. And let’s not even discuss the fact that there are enough crumbs under the carseats to feed a small village in Africa…
We did a multi-state move a couple months ago. Yesterday I finally cleaned out the car and found: about 15 jackets, 15 cups, half a box of macaroni noodles (loose, from the box that had been gnawed open), a bunch of stuffed animals, a ruler, a camera, a Pez dispenser, a miniature vacuum attachment, half a hamburger bun, peanuts, junk mail, some socks and shoes, various beautifully colored preschool worksheets, a bubble gun, the GPS I needed the other day, and a couple kids who thought honking the horn while I cleaned was the best fun EVER!
We recently traded our car in.. I spent about an hour and a half cleaning junk out and vacuuming it and such. I’m trying REALLY hard to keep the new car clean. So far so good.
Hear, hear! My sister’s car is the same as yours…except she doesn’t have any kids! LOL! I mean, her trunk is full of extra clothes (hers), old shoes (hers, and a whole bunch of stuff that I didn’t know still exists.
Anyway, me and my friends helped her clean out her car and, to our shock, she got a lot of “extra” stuff under her car seats.
Your drawing of the car looks hilarious but the colors are appreciate. By the way you describe it just makes me laugh. I wouldn’t even know how to draw a simple car and at least you’ve drawn the back of your car.
I just had to clean out my car yesterday because I found evidence that mouse has taken up residence in there as well. The apple I found (at least I think it was an apple) was thankfully in a ziplock bag. And I noticed that my husband has decided to use the back of my car to store the items that our three year old has outgrown but that our one year old will need in just a few short months (in other words – the potty)…
Bales of hay?? Oh, that could SO easily happen at my house… LOL… This totally reminds me of the time we had to take a mama goat – yup, alive and with horns – to the vet but didn’t have a trailer so put her in the extended cab and went! The situation hasn’t improved since we got rid of the goats and had kids instead – no pun intended!! Guess I should get off my derriere and go clean my van out!!
My husband thinks he does me a great favor by packing up all the junk in my van, putting it in several bags, baskets and/or tubs and lugging them into the house. The van is not clean at all afterwards (crumbs, dried up gum, sand, dirt, etc), but certainly decluttered.
At this point there are at LEAST seven bags, baskets and tubs of car crap that have made the journey (via my husband) from the van to the house that are lying around in my hallway. Eventually, these bags, baskets and tubs have migrated to my bedroom.
I thought I was brilliant by informing my husband that I cannot possibly have sex in a room this cluttered. For sure he was going to begin putting this stuff away.
At this point there are at LEAST seven bags, baskets and tubs of car crap that have been carried from my bedroom back out into the hallway. I will be working on processing these items over the holidays.
I DO intend to inform my husband that I am unable to have sex with him because I am too exhausted from putting away bags, baskets and tubs of car crap.
This could be off-topic, but if you’re anywhere in or near LA, there are a lot of fundraising events for the benefit of the less fortunate where you can participate in. Donate your clothes and shoes like what Greenopolis.com did and be rewarded for your actions. http://youtu.be/jk1mH9JvRr0
It’s a conundrum of car owners with kids, it seems. Well, the best thing to do is to get a few small boxes. Organize and place the things that you need in those boxes. Anything that won’t fit gets out of the car, more or less.
I love this post!!
I recently won guardianship of my niece. Why I think this post is funny. The opposing party took a pic of my car dirty while I was getting my niece ready and they brought the pic to court saying Im a dirty person and I don’t give the children rules of keeping the car clean. Mind you, I have 3 children and the car was only half dirty that day!!!
Judge told opposing party: That’s real life, she has 3 children.
That’s awesome! Thank goodness the judge was not a 20-something with no children…
Again, thank you for this blog.
1. i always thought i was the only one who let her mom-mobile get so bad!
2. thanks for the reminder that i really should get out there and clean my van TODAY. really.
3. i don’t know why i had this blog bookmarked (mom brain prevents me from remembering ever doing so) or who referred me to it, but i was cleaning up my bookmark folder and had to click to figure out what it was…so glad i did!