Barf Car

A few weeks ago my van began to take on an unpleasant odor.


Perhaps you can guess, from the title of this blog entry, the precise nature of said stinkiness.



(image from http://www.cartoonstock.com)

The thing was, no one had been sick in the car recently, so I couldn’t figure out where the smell was coming from.

I thought it might be Eau de Lost Sippy Cup. (You know, like the ones we’ve found under the couch with solidified milk offensively curdled inside them. Ewwww…)

But I couldn’t find anything under the seats, and all of the twins’ cups were accounted for. I couldn’t really find the precise location of the smell either; although it was definitely in the general area of the twins’ carseats.

There was nothing to do but clean the whole car.

Now, you may remember I had the car “detailed” after an accident not too long ago, resulting in the cleanest van ever known. (Read that story here, if you’re interested.)

So I didn’t expect the mess under the seats could have gotten too bad. I was wrong.

I spent a couple of hours giving the van an intense cleaning. I took absolutely everything out of the car. I removed the carseat covers and washed them in the washing machine. I threw away all the trash that had been collecting under the seats. I vacuumed AND shampooed the carpets and seats. Then I left the whole thing open to air out inside the garage for 24 hours.

I’m telling you, this was a THOROUGH cleaning.

The next day we all got inside the newly clean van. Everyone exclaimed over how nice it looked. I congratulated myself on a job well done. We drove for a few minutes in silence.

Then ET remarked, “It still smells like barf in here.”

And the annoying thing is, she was right!

So I resorted to spraying air freshener every time we got in the car instead, drowning the bad smell in a sea of floral friendliness.

Maybe I should have just STARTED with that, and saved myself a lot of trouble.