The Saga of My Van, or The Detailer's Nightmare

We had a little mishap with the van a few weeks ago.

Namely, my husband backed it into a tree, and both the back window and left rear taillight shattered.

I was just glad it wasn't me who had done it, actually.

I thought we could just get the rear windshield replaced, but when the glass replacement man came to the house, he said the tailgate was dented a little and I’d have to take the car to a body shop.

Then the body shop said they’d have to replace the whole tailgate!

This was getting to be an expensive little mishap.

Anyways, in the meantime I was driving around with a tarp duct-taped to the back of my van for three weeks.

And it rained for a solid two of those weeks. The tarp wasn’t holding up too well under the deluge.

By the time I turned the thing in to the garage to be repaired the rear carpet had been soaked through and subsequently dried out several times. It was getting pretty gross back there.

We rented a van to use while ours was in the shop. The kids were pretty excited about the new and pristine vehicle. They asked if we could keep the rental instead of getting our own van back.

I assured them that the rental only seemed nicer because they hadn’t had a chance to ruin it yet.

Although they did have a week to try. I had to keep checking for trash every time we got out. Usually at least one of the kids had to be called back to remove some nasty thing they tried to leave in the backseat.

Today the garage called and said our vehicle was ready to be picked up, so I returned the nice clean rental and went to get our own dirty damp van back.

But I got a pleasant surprise. The mechanic told me that because of the glass in the interior from the broken window they’d had the van cleaned by a detailer.

I looked inside and I couldn’t believe it! This was the cleanest my van has ever been since we purchased it.

It was like I could hear the Hallelujah Chorus playing in there when I opened the door.

Those detailers were really thorough too. They degunked my cupholders. They degunked the KIDS’ cupholders! (And THAT was some serious gunk!)

They had taken everything that was inside the car and put it in two big trash bags.

It was pretty amazing what was in the trash bags. I expected the books, and toys, and general trash.

But there were a few unexpected things:

1. Four shoes--only two of them matched each other.
2. Only one sippy cup. But it had enough mold in it for two or three!
3. The air freshener I’ve been looking for several months.
4. Enough pens, pencils, and markers to supply a small school.
5. A couple of blankets. Because it’s so COLD here in Hawaii we need those.

Also in one of the bags was a small bag about half-full of trash. It looked as if they had started out trying to just put the garbage in there and then realized the impossibility of sorting through all the junk in the car.

I could imagine the poor guy with his little bag pulling things out: “Okay, this is trash; this is trash; this is trash….Wait a minute! It’s ALL trash! Hey Joe? I’m gonna need a bigger bag here!”

Anyways, I’m very grateful to whatever poor soul detailed my van. Dude, you put in a full day’s work!

Now to keep it clean….