If your kid leaves the van door hanging open… (a messy #momlife tale)

If your kid leaves the van door hanging open…

You better believe that it will downpour later on.

If it downpours later on, you will rush outside to close the door in your nightgown, hoping that the neighbors don’t see.

If you get the door closed, it probably won’t be closed in enough time, and your kid’s side of the van will still get soaked.

If your kid’s side of the van gets soaked, he will probably complain about having a wet butt on the way to school the next morning.

If your kid complains about having a wet butt on the way to school, you will probably be a mean mom and tell him it’s his own darn fault and he just has to deal with it.

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If your kid leaves the van door hanging open and it gets wet, a few days later, it will smell like death.

If your van smells like death, you will spray Fabreeze and spend an entire day running around town with your windows open, hoping the smell goes away.

If you ride around town with your windows open for a day, your van will still smell like death.

If your van still smells like death, you will start investigating.

If you start investigating, you will end up taking apart both of the car seats and putting their fabric parts in the washer.

If you take apart the car seats, your van will probably still smell like death. 

If your van still smells like death, you will check under the hood for dead animals.

If you don’t find any dead animals, your van will still probably smell like death. 

If your van still smells like death, you will remove everything from it, spray more Fabreeeze, and start vacuuming it with your cordless, handheld vac.

[If you start vacuuming your van,  you will have to keep your children occupied.

If you have to keep your children occupied –  but one of them is in serious trouble for other infractions we won’t get into here – you will turn on the TV for one of them and make the other one do picking up jobs which he will complain about and you will fail at trying not to lose your temper to make him go away and clean up so you can vacuum in peace.]

If you start vacuuming the van, you will realize that the handy-dandy-storage-trap-door-thingy-that-only-gets-used-to-hide-the-treasures-of-your-6-year-old is full of old Kleenexes, empty juice boxes containers, crumbs, and random plastic bowls. You will also realize that it’s soaking wet, and…surprise surprise…SMELLS LIKE DEATH. 

If you start vacuuming out the handy-dandy-storage-trap-door-thingy-that-only-gets-used-to-hide-the-treasures-of-your-6-year-old, you’ll realize you can take the entire fabric part out and put it in the washer and hope it doesn’t fall apart.

If you keep vacuuming your van, you will realize that under a flap of flooring there is a huge patch of black mold growing that…SMELLS LIKE DEATH.

If you find black mold growing in your van, you will get out your Bissell-Little-Green-Water-Vacuum-Thingy and a bottle of bleach-free mold remover spray.

If you get out your Bissell-Little-Green-Water-Vacuum-Thingy, your kids will start complaining about being hungry.

If your kids start complaining about being hungry, you will set them at the table with a bunch of random snacks and call it “dinner” and return to de-stinking your van.

If you get ready to use your Bissell-Little-Green-Water-Vacuum-Thingy, you will realize there’s no way to do this with the van in the driveway.

If you realize there’s no way to do this with the van in the driveway, you will have to take all the crap that’s currently in your garage and relocate it to the other side of the garage (that’s already filled with a bunch MORE crap) so you can pull it into the garage.

If you pull your van into the garage, you will realize that the closest outlet for your Bissell-Little-Green-Water-Vacuum-Thingy is still the one over the washer and dryer and you will have to use a power strip.

If you realize that your closest outlet is over the washer and dryer, you will have to step over piles of dirty laundry that your son dumped there this morning from every.single.hamper.in.the.house to “help” you [and you let him because it was keeping him occupied so you could watch a show, but you hadn’t got around to sorting it yet.]

If you finally get to scrubbing your mold-infested van using the Bissell-Little-Green-Water-Vacuum-Thingy plugged into the outlet over the washer and dryer, it will come unplugged at least 3 times while you are working.

If you have to stop to plug your Bissell-Little-Green-Water-Vacuum-Thingy three times, you will also notice that it is leaking all over the garage floor because you forgot to put in the little-black-rubber-seal-thingy after the last time you used it.

If you notice that your Bissell-Little-Green-Water-Vacuum-Thingy is leaking, you will ignore it, because it’s just the garage floor and who cares?

If you finally finish scrubbing down 10% of the moldiest spots of your van that were exposed to the rain when your kid left the door hanging open – you will decide that you need the extra DampRid container that is in the corner of your downstairs “office.”

[If you go into your downstairs “office,” you will find that the job you gave your kid to do is still undone, but you will be too tired to follow through and make him finish it.]

If you finally finish this task of hoping to de-stink your van, you will decide that this probably needs a blog post.

If you decide to write a blog post, you will let your children take an extra-long shower so they will leave you alone.

If you let your children take an extra-long shower so they will leave you alone so you can write a blog post, they will probably start screaming at each other at some point.

If your kids start screaming and you keep writing your blog post, you will probably feel guilty.

But only a little bit.

The end.