I’m A Car Slob… And I Don’t Care

by Keith Yancy

Ever get your car washed?  Vacuum out the interior?  Keep your car spotlessly clean?

If you do, you’re officially not a car slob.  I do none of those things — or don’t do them often enough — which, unfortunately, makes me a true, should-be-ashamed-of-myself-but-I’m-not car slob.

I probably should keep my car clean, considering how many hours — and how many miles — I drive each week.  Two hours a day minimum during the week, 500 miles… and that’s if I do nothing but go to and from work every day.  Running errands, taking my daughters around town, going bowling — and I’m in my car even longer.

So, you’d think I’d keep it cleaner.  But, I don’t.  Oh, I clean out the clutter from time to time — I’m not that bad, I guess — but when it comes to going to the car wash or breaking out the vacuum, I just don’t seem to get around to it.  New or old, whatever car I’m driving is probably dirty on the outside and dusty within.

I’ve paid for this laziness more than once.  A few examples:

The Mexican Food Incident: During the heat of summer while in college, I made the mistake of taking home leftovers from a Mexican restaurant.  Only problem is, I rarely take home leftovers, and immediately forgot that I put the leftovers — contained in a styrofoam box — in the backseat.  This box then slid under the seat, where it stayed for about 4 days.  These  four days were all above 90 degrees, which quickly created a stench in my car that grew so progressively bad that I could barely stand to drive anywhere without all  the windows down.  When I finally found the box, the smell was so overpowering that I nearly became physically sick.

The Crayon Episode:  During another summertime much later — after I was married with a child — I again didn’t keep the inside of my car clean.  This time it was my minivan, and my daughter had left a crayon on the cloth seat.  Given that she (like most kids) made a gargantuan mess back there with Cheerios, gum wrappers, Cheez-its and a large number of small toys, I didn’t have the time or energy to pick it all up.  That is, until I noticed that the purple crayon had melted in the sun all over the light gray car seat.  I wound up having to peel off the purple crayon, leaving a large purple stain that never, ever came out — despite several cleaning attempts. 

The Breath Mint Discovery:  Lest you begin to assume these disasters only occurred during the summertime, I learned during the winter that my second daughter didn’t like those red-and-white mints you get after dinner in restaurants.  I’ve never liked them, but she would invariably take one when we went out to dinner.  I didn’t think much of it until one wintry day, when I finally broke down and began cleaning out the car.  I discovered that she would (apparently) try to eat them, and then spit them out onto the floor carpeting, where they would fuse themselves like iron onto the carpet.  In fact, I had to resort to chipping them off the floor with an ice scraper.  This caused me to go through two ice scrapers (yes, they both broke) before I could finally get them off the floor.

Nowadays, my kids are slightly better (at least they aren’t spitting food onto the floor that I know of).  But I’ve not really learned my lesson.  The other morning, as the warmth of summer turned into the chilly mornings of autumn, I got into my car and was surprised to notice how dirty my windshield was.  Not only on the outside, but on the inside too. 

As I drove to work, I looked closely around my car.  Dust was thick on my dashboard.  Dust was on my radio screen.  Dust was on everything, quite honestly.  Lacking the motivation to actually clean anything, I searched for an easy alternative… and then it struck me.  I would BLOW the dust out of my car by simply rolling down the windows while I drove on the freeway.  I immediately rolled down my windows and waited for the cleaning to begin.

Things didn’t go like I thought.

Almost immediately, I turned the interior of my car into a kind of Dyson cyclone vacuum cleaner — with me inside of it.  The dust not only stayed right where it was (and yes, it’s still there now) but MORE dust swirled around my face and all through the inside of my car.  I actually caused my eyes to begin stinging and burning as my car hurtled down the freeway, dust  swirling everywhere but out of the windows.  Dust was absolutely everywhere, and when I finally closed the windows in failure, dust was not only everywhere it always had been, but was now covering my clothes, burning my eyes, and distributing itself even deeper on all the inside surfaces of my car.

So, my car is still dirty.  But there is a bright spot — my car’s interior is gray, which goes quite nicely with dust.  I’m now considering whether to clean it out the old fashioned way, or simply wait until my lease is up in March.  I’m leaning toward waiting… and just making sure not to disturb the dust any further.  After all… I’m not particularly good about cleaning my glasses either.

I’ve included a few photos below.  I wonder if anyone else out there is as bad as I am… or if they’ll admit it.

Until next time… 🙂

My dusty, grungy dashboard.

My lame attempt at cleaning off the dust the old fashioned way.

Note the broken windshield and the permanent film/muck where the wipers don't go. A fixture on my ride.

This silly air freshener is the only consistent effort I've made to keep my car interior pleasant. I only have it because I found an unopened pack of these air-freshener things on the ground.

Clearly, no vacuum has been used in here in a long, long, LONG time. I really should do something beyond taking pictures.