Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Spring Cleaning

It was beautiful Tuesday! The sort of beautiful spring day that makes you think “Gosh I really ought to clean something!”

Which really? Strikes me as an odd thing to think just because the day is nice. Yet, there I was, thinking it.

I decided to clean the mini van out. It goes in to the dealership today for an oil change & whatever other maintenance is required and they vacuum out the car as part of the service.

But only if you have all your crap up off the floors first. Probably they don’t want to get in trouble for vacuuming up stuff they thought was crap but you were keeping for some reason.

And probably they don’t want to move balled up sweat socks & sticky toys to vacuum up the other stuff.

I gathered up the napkins, receipts, food wrappers and other garbage and tossed it all. And I tossed all the stuff I was keeping for some reason into a basket

This is the basket

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Let’s break it down shall we?

First there were the food related items that have been rolling and banging around the mini van for I don’t know how long but that I only thought about when I went around a corner and heard one of them whack into something.

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Then there were the socks. 12 socks to be exact, but 3 of them don’t belong to us and I can’t recall any time in the past 4 months when people other than us have been in the mini van. So it seems I have solved the mystery of where socks go when they vanish from your dryer – someone else’s mini van. Probably there is some sort of wormhole or gap in the space time continuum that sends socks from dryers to under seats in mini vans around the world. Do any of them look familiar? I’ll mail them to you

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Then there were meal toys. 2 stuffed panda bears from some fast food kid’s meal or other and 8, yes 8, plastic sharks from Glory  Days’ Shark Attack drinks, collected over the past 3 months. Glory Days is the restuarant that serves the fried fish that has been my ‘issue food’ since Christmas. I’m sort of surprised there aren’t more sharks to be honest.

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Last we have the random “Important Stuff We Have Been Looking for for Ages Now”. This includes a flashlight headlamp, a Spongebob DS game and DS wand,and a tube of hydrocortisone cream. Plus some Valentine’s Day candy and a blue marker that has Absolutely No Business being in the car

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All that is left in the car is crap that can be vacuumed, like crushed goldfish crackers, dead leaves and lots of small bits of gravel.

I made another attempt to set the clock but there was no joy. I’m going to get the dealership to look at it but it’s after market so I’m not sure they will have any luck either. However Crutchfield, which is the largest after market stereo installer in the area is right down from the dealership and I’m sure they will be able to help me because they have in the past. Odds are it’s one of theirs anyway.