~ Ain’t Nothin But A Thang ~

I had a couple of hours to myself today, and decided to use it to wash the good ol’ Chevy Equinox.  You see, it’s supposed to be red, but lately it’s looked brownish-greyish-blackish red. It doesn’t bother me until I keep finding car dirt on my clothes.  That’s when I know it’s time to wash it.

I started with the inside, and while vacuuming, I found:

Broken bits of blue glass in Critter’s door pocket.  (He collects the darndest things.)

Broken toy bits in Critter’s Seat Pocket

Broken Pen pieces.

Broken DVD case pieces.

Bits of: Pretzels, cookies, goldfish crackers, Poptarts, McDonald’s French Fries, biscuits, and a couple of raisins.  Or at least, I think they were raisins.

Drinking Straw Wrappers.

Gloves.

A yellow Crayon.

2 Mind-Bender games.

Several pennies.

Copius dirty kleenex.

Here’s the funny part of all of this.  I vacuumed the car two weeks ago.  All of this was accumulated in only two weeks.

Apparently, we are total pigs.

Then I started on the outside of the car.  That part I had not washed in a long time.  Maybe months, even.  While I was scrubbing, I began to notice little dings that had not been there before.  Maybe they were from inept shopping cart steering, maybe they were from stray gravel thrown from the road.  I don’t know.  But with each new ding, I began to get more and more upset.

Like, is it REALLY that hard to miss someone’s car with a shopping cart?  Do you REALLY have to open your car door so wide that you have to scratch my door?  DOES ANYONE CARE ABOUT OTHER PEOPLE’S PROPERTY??!!! (yelled with Charlie Brown voice)

And after I wound myself up nice and tight, I took a deep breath and remembered all the times I’ve accidentally dinged someone else’s door because the wind caught mine as I was opening it.  And I remembered the times my kids had been unable to control the shopping carts when they were trying to “help” like a big boy and girl.

I rubbed one of the nicks in the door.  It went all the way down through the paint to the base of the metal.  It must have been quite an impact.

I remembered barking at my kids when they did that to someone’s car.  I remembered how they felt so badly about it, they cried. I remembered they haven’t made the same mistake ever since. They learned.

And I started unwinding.

***sigh***

It’s just a car.  It’s just a thing.   It can be fixed.

I guess when when my family and I are perfect, I can be peeved at other people’s accidents.  Until then, I’m just going to leave my car unwashed.

Ignorance is bliss.