A cluttered house?  I can live with it.  A not-quite-spotless car exterior?  Doesn't bother me too much.  A disorganized workspace at home or at work?  Annoying, yes, but I can still function.  But one sure way to rile me up is to leave garbage in the inside of the car on a continuous basis.

Now I'm not so picky that I can't even stand having specks of dirt on the carpet or dust on the dashboard.  The car interior doesn't have to be completely pristine for me to be a happy camper.  But leaving used kleenex, empty soda cans or water bottles, torn up pieces of who-knows-what - it's enough to send my blood pressure skyrocketing past Pluto.  

It's one of those things that I keep asking time and time again, "keep the car clean, please?  Remember to take your garbage inside with you."  But I guess it falls on deaf ears as it mostly goes unheeded.  Granted, Ariel has surprised me from time to time by cleaning out the car without being asked.  But it usually comes down to when I just can't stand it any longer and ask someone to get rid of all the garbage that has accumulated within the last few days.  

If you haven't had the chance to experience a single car household with two kids, you are missing out.  You're missing out on stained upholstery.  I gave up on *that* battle a long, long time ago.  You're missing out on food particles wedged under car seats, and making its way into crevices you didn't know even existed.  In fact, these crevices are not even in the same dimension that we live in.  That way, when you clean, you just happen to miss these secret locations.  And when you're done cleaning, they pop into the car and deposit their lovely contents all over your immaculately vacuumed passenger seat.  But the worst thing you're missing out on is used kleenex, especially freshly used kleenex.  There's nothing more soothing or pleasing than going to clean kleenex out of the car only to find that certain pieces are somewhat moist and slimy.  As I am usually pretty conscientious about my own garbage, that leaves the rest of the family as the root cause of the remaining garbage.  That is why I refuse to clean out the car even though I'm the one that's bothered by it the most.  Because I hate cleaning up other people's trash.  Even trash belonging to Those I Love.

Now we don't have any sort of garbage "bag" in our car, so most of the trash gets deposited onto the floorboard for lack of any better place.  Oh sure, some select "special" pieces of garbage manage to make it to the equivalent of garbage heaven - the ash tray.  Since we don't smoke, we *never* use the ashtrays.  And what small pieces of trash makes it in there is likely to stay there for a long, long time.  It's a very special place indeed.

I mean, how difficult is it to take your trash with you when you get out of the car?  I don't think that's too much to ask.  But then again, when you have a toddler to unbuckle from his car seat, a diaper bag to carry, and other things you may have brought along, it may not be all that easy.

Co-worker Buddy and I got into a pretty enthusiastic discussion about this very topic Friday afternoon.  I'm glad to know that I'm not the only one that feels this way.  In fact, he feels even more strongly about having a clean car than I do.  Plus he has two vehicles in his household with two even younger kids.  You do the math.  Double the number of vehicles and quadruple the amount of garbage.  I don't know why it works that way, but it does.  At least we can suffer in misery together.  Before too long, I'm sure we'll be swapping stories from the trenches, trying to outdo each other with the latest garbage left in our vehicles.

Now even though this is one of *my* pet peeves, I'm sure Jen has the same thing to say about me leaving my socks all over the house.  So I suppose I am guilty of leaving messes as well - but at least mine aren't slimy or moist.  Stinky maybe, but not slimy nor moist.