Cleaning the Chrysler

Sometimes Kelley gets mental blocks about things. It takes her years to make medical or dental appointments, for instance, and she spent over a grand on D.C. parking tickets before finally updating her registration and plates.

Luckily, her tendency to procrastinate fits well with my skill at nagging. I'm willing and able to make her life an unbearable hell until she takes care of essential tasks. I go that extra mile for her because I love her.

I'd been "encouraging" Kelley to clean out her car for a long time, but so far she lacked the willpower to buckle down and get started. I couldn't stand to see her suffer any longer, so I simply declared that over the long weekend, we were going to get the job done. No room for discussion.

I knew cleaning the car, especially the trunk, was going to be an adventure. Kelley has been using her car as storage space since college, and the contents of the trunk and backseat had become a veritable museum of her early 20s.

While Kelley went to retrieve her car and drive it down to our building's loading area, I amassed supplies. I figured one shopping cart and a trash bag would be more than adequate.

Once Kelley pulled up and popped her trunk, I saw that I had made a horrible miscalculation. What we actually were going to need was a dump truck and some sort of crane.

We went to work. I started on the car's interior, clearing out CDs, shoes, dry cleaning, and traffic citations, while Kelley began on the trunk. 

Always efficiency-challenged, rather than just sorting things quickly (bear in mind it was, like, 5 degrees outside as we were doing this) , Kelley had to inspect and admire each treasure she brought forth from the trunk's abyss. She called me back frequently to admire her finds.

An awkward family photo.

An entire garbage bag full of sneakers.

A poncho from the Maid of the Mist.

A single tentacle from a homemade octopus costume.

A set of snowshoes.

Two bottles of wine and some vermouth.

A brick.

A bag of polyfil from that time Kelley thought 

she was going to make a pillow.

There was more.

So. Much. More.

But one hour and three frostbitten fingers later, we were nearly finished. Kelley crawled into the trunk to pull the last few books from the innermost recesses.

And for the first time since May 2009, Kelley would be able to retrieve her spare tire from beneath the floor of her trunk.

The car was clean! Sort of. It still needs detailing because there are dead leaves ground into the floor and it looks like a pterodactyl defecated on the back hood. 

But the worst was definitely over. I retrieved another shopping cart and we packed everything to take upstairs to our apartment.

All that junk is now sitting around our living room. Kelley has sorted out a few things she wants to give to Goodwill, but she hasn't touched the rest. I sense another mental block setting in. I'm going to give her a few days to rest before I start harassing dropping some gentle reminders...