Cleaning the Cave

I don’t know what it is about my husband and his car, but it is a relationship I truly do not understand. I joke with him all of the time and tell him “You would live in a dirt cave and be happy”, and his car is the closest thing to that as you can get.

My husband is normally a very organized clean person, especially at his job. But get him in his car, and it all goes out the window.

I had to switch cars with him today which I dread, usually, more than going for a root canal. Let me begin by telling you we bought this car as our first big purchase together in 1994. It is a great car. It watched us get married. It brought us out West. It has seen labor of our first daughter and brought her safely home after her birth.

Once we got a second car, this car became my husband’s.

His sanctuary.

His Manly Place.

At any given time you can find

about 20 coffee mugs in the back seat. Papers, food, mold, moss, thick dust, and dirt all call his car home. Not to mention (But I will) the two windows do not roll down, the hood is forever bent upward, and there is a part falling off of the side. I can barely drive through all of my coughing. It is that gross.

Today I cleaned it.

Oh what a feeling. Exhilarating, really, to liberate his car from it’s crusty shell. I threw away, combined, I donated, and vaccumed til this car shone. Until it was acceptable, by my obsessive standards.

Ah. That is better.

I understand he does need a place to be masculine (living with all of us girls) I suppose being a man has something to do with dirt. OK. But if you don’t tidy up now and again, nature will reclaim this car. It will cease being a car, and it will be just a home for the squirrels.

Tomorrow, it will probably resume being his cave on wheels, and that is alright.

Today it is clean.

Nature trying to take it to make a home for the squirrels.