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Friday, May 27, 2005
not QUITE an exercise in futility
Tonight I didn't feel like just sitting around; I wanted to do something productive. (whoops, sorry, should have warned you so that you'd be sure to be sitting down before you read that. Are you OK?) So I cleaned out the car.
I have noticed, in my walks around town, that most people's cars have... what's it called, that place under all the JUNK... um, floors. That's it. You can look in their car windows and see floor mats, and seats, not just in a couple spots where the stuff's shoved out of the way, but all the way around. I'd comfort myself with the knowledge that these people must not have kids, but I happen to know that's not always the case. (still clinging to hope that maybe the cars were NEW...). Ours used to be much, much better than it has become lately; I think it's largely that the kids are old enough to take stuff INTO the car, but they aren't old enough to take it OUT yet.
That and I'm a total and complete slob, that's also part of it. Maybe.
Anyway. I started thinking I really REALLY needed to clean out the car yesterday, when I tried to find my little bottle of glasses-cleaning solution on the way to Awana, and I couldn't. Before I was sure that it was lost, though, I'd gathered up a full grocery bag of garbage just from around my feet in the passenger side and what I could reach of the back floorboard. (not GROSS garbage, just papers and receipts and junk mail and plastic grocery bags and that sort of non-maggoty, non-food-item, non-stinky stuff. But still.) Today we went to the valley to watch Star Wars and eat at Applebee's and spend our retirement (well, not really, but it felt like it) at Wal-Mart, and when we got home, I was going to sit on the porch swing and read and listen to the snick-snick-snick of the sprinkler on the newly-mown front lawn, but I just couldn't, knowing that That Mess was out there, WAITING. So what started out as emptying out the junk, putting away the non-junk, and washing the inside of the windows (the rear window still bore the ghostly remains of a fog-written "BUSH 2004", done by my politically astute son last fall, and of course I only noticed it when I was actually driving the car down the road and hence could not exactly just reach back and clean it off) turned into a full-out wash job. Which was really pretty stupid. Because guess where we're driving tomorrow. If you guessed "down miles of dry dusty dirt road to your parents'", you are right! Bingo! You win the prize! Oh well; at least the inside will be clean.
P.S. re: Star Wars: I really enjoyed the movie, better than Episodes I and II, and also better than the earliest three episodes, at least in that it has no Mark Hamill, who, I'm sorry, belongs in a ballet class somewhere, not in an adventure movie. And the way Luke changed from a whiny teenager to a condescending know-it-all in the space of a mere three movies did not impress me. Anyway. Episode III was very nicely done, and emotionally stirring, and all that. But you know what had me in choky tears and cold chills simultaneously? Was the preview for "The Lion, The Witch, And The Wardrobe" that came before it. MY GOSH I CAN NOT WAIT.
Comments
Well, I feel better about my car now, because it sounds EXACTLY LIKE YOURS. Will you please write Ryan a note explaining that I am not alone, that other people have my disease?
Re: Star Wars. You know what made this one so much better than the others? That's right...no JarJar (except in one scene, and he didn't talk, which is good enough for me). Meesa kill JarJar if heesa speak.
Posted by: Kristen at May 27, 2005 11:05 PM
I think there's some law of nature that the day after you wash your car, you *must* drive down a dusty road, be assailed by a cloud of insects (half of which will stick to the grill), be bombed by flock of birds, etc. ;o)
LOL about how Mark Hamill should've been in a ballet class! He never quite struck me as the dashing hero type, either.
I'm glad to hear that you enjoyed the film. I've been reading mostly bad reviews, but we're still planning to see it-- and now I have more hope in the outcome.
Posted by: Michael at May 28, 2005 04:22 AM
