A Carpool Conviction

Hey Moms of the World (and some Dads too)...  You know that feeling of liberation and glee when you send your children off to be transported by someone else to one of their many activities?  Yeah, me too.  That feeling is awesome.  I call it CarPool Liberation.  They walk out the door and you have a blessed extra 15-20 minutes (sometimes even longer!!!) to do whatever you want.  Sometimes I use that time to put the dishes away or something else noble and productive, but today my plan was to crawl back into bed and hopefully get just a teensy bit more sleep.

Just as I was starting to drift off, my phone buzzed...  Dang it.  It was one of my offspring who forgot an important document on the table and this important document was necessary for her to do what she was doing.  Nothing kills the buzz of CarPool Liberation more than a text from a child stating they forgot xyz important thing.  Double dang.  Now, I suppose I could have played hardball and let her take her lumps, but I did wake her up a little late and I did not remind her to take the documents.  In fact, I was also already back in bed before she even came upstairs to get into the car waiting patiently in our driveway, so I wasn't exactly "Mom of the Year" in this situation.  With a sigh and unspoken swear words, I glanced at my haggard reflection in the mirror, shrugged in resignation, threw on my shoes and went off to save the day.  

As I was driving, every time I took a turn I would hear this thunk! thunk! thunk! sound.  Normally that would not bother me but these were not normal times.  I had not gotten enough sleep and I was a teensy bit crabby that my CarPool Liberation moment was hijacked.  Every thunk! thunk! thunk! made me a little bit more ornery.  What was making that sound?  Who was responsible for this horrible annoyance?  Why must everything be ruined?  When exactly would I get bestowed with sainthood for surviving these horrible trials?

When I returned home, I surveyed the back seat of the car and found the source of my frustration.  It was a smoothie shaker bottle that contained what was left of the smoothie I had lovingly prepared for one of the offspring on MONDAY..  Today is Wednesday.  But, that's not all...  The backseat of my car looks like my children are attempting to curate a museum that will document and celebrate every snack or meal they ever ate while riding in the trusty Pilot.  Wrappers, crumb-filled sandwich bags, roughly a jillion water bottles, mostly empty yogurt cups....  What the actual heck?  Who are we?  Why are we so darn sloppy?  Will my children appear on an episode of Hoarders some day?

The state of my car was not really that much of a surprise.  I had a nagging suspicion that all was not well in the second row of seats.  Frankly, all was not well in the front row either.  There is a little nook in the passenger side that appeared to contain garbage from 2010 and I am apparently collecting La Croix Cans to prepare for some sort of aluminum emergency.  When I'd pick up other people's kids and transport them, I would apologize and most of them would say their cars look the same.  (Fist bump of solidarity to all the moms driving around SUV's repurposed into garbage trucks!).  There was one girl who had the grace and decency to just say nothing.  We all knew her mom would never drive around this kind of mess, but her mom also raised her right.  She had nothing nice to say, so she just said nothing at all.  Yes, I knew was not all right in my Pilot, but I was actually shocked by what I found this morning.  Lord, have mercy on us.  Deliver us from Bel Vita wrappers and half full beverage containers.  

And that's when I felt convicted!  We were DONE being sloppy people.  I am going to clean out this car and I am going to have RULES.  There will be no eating in this vehicle.  Not even a single Goldfish cracker.  Every night we will survey the contents of the car and remove anything that is not absolutely necessary for the safe operation of that automobile.  You want to keep your book in there for the ride tomorrow?  Too bad...remember to bring it back out there with you.  You are too tired to do this task after going to a two hour athletic practice and sitting on my couch snap-chatting your friends?  I am so sorry that your life is so terrible, but you will go out and remove the athletic clothes and damp towel you left on the floor.  And furthermore, you will empty that athletic bag of anything that is stinky or wet immediately.  

Yes!  Today would be the day when we get our shiznit together.  We will be organized and clean and punctual.  We will be pleasant to each other and never forget to do anything.  I will no longer remember to pick you up from something five minutes after I am supposed to.  I am going to be five minutes early and I'll even have homemade snacks that you can look at but not eat because of these new rules.  Hope  filled my soul.  We would be good people.  That grace filled child who said nothing will be able to tell me with truth that my car actually does resemble her mother's perfectly clean vehicle.  It is a new day.

As I walked into my house with determination and a small dose of self-righteousness, I had this nagging feeling that this was not the first time I'd felt this way before.  In fact, I believe the last time I cleaned out the car, I announced to them all that they had lost the privilege to eat in that car and that if they argued with me they may lose the privilege to eat at all.  These Rules were not new, sadly, and neither was this conviction.  

At this point, I'm not sure if I should just throw in the towel and allow chaos to take over or fool myself into believing that this time...this actual time...we would actually do these things.  I will make homemade meals everyday including packing picnic dinners to avoid eating out.  I will finally begin composting our food scraps to help the planet.  I will organize the craft space in the basement and wash the baseboards and get the garage in order.  We will not eat chips ever again and I will exercise every single day. Yeah. Right.  Still, I think I'll keep playing the game because without these momentary bursts of conviction, we would surely descend into complete disaster.  

And, now, I'm going to go think about cleaning out my car.