New Car

     I got a new car last weekend. At least it feels that way. Remember this story. Well that car is my new / old ride. It got a make-over last weekend. The interior was in need of some serious TLC. It hadn’t had any real love in a few… ahem…cough cough, embarrassed face, walking away with my head hung in shame as I say this under my breath…two or three years. Even before then it had a long history of being unclean. I leaked a bottle of oil in the back right passenger side. It soaked in really well and by last weekend the floor mat had become an oily orange shade. It’s not that I’m dirty. I keep my house pretty clean I think. But I just don’t give my car the same consideration. I sort of think of it as a necessity not and extension of me. I’ve never been one to drool over automobiles. If it gets me from point A to point B I’m satisfied with it. I think what started this whole car cleaning spree was when the need arose at work to drive people to a work lunch. I started to think, "I don’t mind driving but don’t judge me because of how nasty my car is." It made me feel nasty and really want to fix said condition of point A to B mobile. God looks at the heart but men look on the outward and I want to grow in favor with God and man…So this car is gonna glow.

     When I do something I try to do it thoroughly. This was an all day event. I’m not even kidding. First I drove it down to the car wash mid-morning and got her all sparkly. Then I pulled in the garage and tackled my husband's shop vac. Let’s just say the vacuum is a lot bigger than half of me but I put on my ninja skills and soon mastered young sucking tube. It took me a while to pull it out of the confined cubicle of allocated space the Wubs confined it to, unwind the cord…finding an outlet wasn’t hard because Wubs went over-board and installed about thirty of them along his work bench...you think I’m joking…I’m not…Then I had to figure out where to attach the hose. It’s longer than I am tall and barely fits in my hand but I am determined…At this point there is slight heavy breathing going on. Then I have to figure out how to turn the stupid thing on. You think it would be obvious but if you’ve never used a shop vac you just don’t know. I for sure didn’t ...Before you judge my stupidity…look at this pic:

 

Do you see the on switch? If real men ever read this blog I run the risk of becoming the stupidest female to ever conquer a shop vac but I don’t care. I know there’s kindred spirits out there who also look at this picture and think:

“Is it me or does that thing look like an obese evil version of R2D2?”

In the shadows it is. Lurk it does. When you look at the dark side careful you must be. For the dark side looks back…

LOL…ok so it wasn’t that dramatic.

      The droid was finally in position. I sucked happily and had a full body workout by the time I was through. I conquered. I even found a few more pieces of glass from my passenger window that got busted out a few years back. A friend had left a bag of bath and body works Christmas gifts she had bought for her family in the back seat.  Some poor soul felt they had a right to them. I’m still finding the shards.  Now I never leave anything in my car when I go into a store. Another lesson learned.

     I moved on to the windows. I got them windexed and shiny. Then I tackled the worst job the interior of my car had to offer. My cup holder.  Wubs calls it my petri dish. This is the most embarrassing thing and it involves my extreme stubbornness. Out here coffee is all the rage but I will never love it as I do my tea. Tea is medicine to my bones and I absolutely have to have a cup in the morning. The problem is, I can’t drink it in anything plastic. Plastic makes tea taste awful. So what do I do? I’m stubborn and refuse to have my morning meds interrupted by the taste of plastic. I make tea every morning and put it in a ceramic mug but I almost always never leave myself enough time in the morning to drink it. So it ends up slopped all over my cup holder. Our driveway is a steep incline so when I reverse out…there goes some tea…I put a paper towel down but after a few days of this…baking in a heated car…it’s not pretty. I bleached the snot out of that sucker.

     About the time I finished Wubs got home and we started our shopping trip. I bought new floor mats for the front and back of my car. One of the old mats had gone missing. Another was totally destroyed with oil and the others just looked like they had been around too long. We got home and I went to put them in my car only to find that Wubs had accidently left them in the cart. But I am determined to get this car in ship shape…today. So I drove back out to see if I could recover them. They were long gone so I let go of my frustration and my penny pinching and bought another set. Then I drove over to the mall to go into Yankee candle and find a yummy car scent. I bought lemon lavender and classic mackintosh…

Just ignore the giant tennis ball in the first picture…LOL…Wubs thought I needed the extra help because I am a notoriously bad parker.

 

My car smells yumm-oh. It really is the little things in life.

Then I ran over to world market to buy tea bags and found the ULTIMATE SCORE.

 

     I didn’t even know they made all glass tea carafes. Isn’t that the fun-est thing ever? I also splurged and bought some twinings tea. A big box of earl grey and English breakfast…

     Now I have a new car and a new tea thingy that keeps my tea warm all the way to work with no spill-age. Sigh...happiness.