The rats’ nest

This weekend I cleaned the car out. I could bear it no longer. The mud, sand and those irritating little bits of miniature stick that weave themselves into the carpet finally broke me.

Mr Mother Fudger and I play chicken regarding who will finally break. It is always me yet long before we had children he named the car I drove as the rats’ nest. He has a point. I can’t blame others entirely for the crimes I too commit. Banana skin – throw it on the floor, empty coke can – throw it on the floor, petrol receipt – throw it on the floor. You get the picture. Although I did move to a bag hanging over the gear stick for rubbish at which Mr MF said I had turned into a coach driver. I puffed out my chest with pride. I drive a Zafira, it has 7 seats don’t you know.

So combine the grot I create with in excess of 2,500 on-the-turn yoghurt raisins, pieces of broken toy, dried up packets of baby wipes I put into the car in 2011 that I am reassured will help me through the worst poo explosion or other general matter I have to clean up on a daily basis, plus more mud than the Gruffalo’s lair following Mr MF’s allotment obsession and you have the innards of our car.

When I’ve watched cleaning programmes I curse those filthy people wondering how they can let their houses get quite so grotty and yet I climb into my parenting cliché of a Vauxhall Zafira on a daily basis surrounded by more bacteria than a male student’s scrotal sack and feel ashamed.

So today, the time had come. I could bear it no longer. The grumbles and moans went unheard or ignored by Mr MF and I dragged our hoover out along with a significant number of carrier bags determined to tackle the grime. Saturday night, yay, I know how to partaaaaa. 

I removed:
*a pair of fairy wings
*a fairy wand
*around 5 Lamaze toys to ensure the baby was more stimulated than a 1990s raver at a Prodigy concert
*a miniature chalk board
*approximately 55 books (I lost count)
*an anorak I bought in 2002 that doesn’t fit
*an emergency triangle (note no torch – obviously guaranteed to break down in the day)
*the arm from a dinosaur broken off 3 minutes after said dinosaur was purchased
*more Mr Tumble snap cards than anyone should own
*Dolly Parton, Best of
*broken CD case of Paulo Nutini
*an out of date voucher book
*an enormous can of hair spray (see above reference to Dolly, a girl’s gotta have aspirations)
*a cosytoes for a pushchair we took to the dump more than a year ago
*emergency milk for the boy baby that now we’ve had a heat wave is probably more lethal than Texas’ supply of death row injections

I could go on.

So one hour of hoovering, plus a hell of a lot of general cleaning has left that damn fine beast of a vehicle looking shiny and sparkly and me more zen…until Mr MF said last night “I’m off fishing early tomorrow so need to put my fishing gear in there”. Gutted – or he plus the fish will be if there is a hint of fish stench or mess.