These Are the Grossest Messes You've Cleaned Out of Cars

Oh, my poor Neon. I tried very, very hard to keep it clean. But, I was a heathen college-age male who lived with his parents, so I spent a lot of time in it. Eventually, the…patina that it received from my questionable habits increased exponentially with time. Food gets spilled, drinks get spilled…other things get spilled, and no amount of Meguiar’s is going to get those stains out. 14 years ago, I went to the birthday party of a girl I liked. Afterwards, a few of us were going back to her mom’s house (she lived at home) and I offered to help take some of the party supplies and leftovers in the Neon. That’s how a crockpot full of meatballs ended up spilling into the passenger footwell. For the rest of the life of that car, everytime it got hot in my car, it would smell faintly of Sweet Baby Ray’s BBQ sauce. The girl felt really bad about it, like it was somehow her fault. She’s my wife of nearly 8 years now, so I guess it’s OK now.

I did occasionally let my car fill up with trash to unacceptable levels. Again, I practically lived out of it. Things would get lost. Sometimes there were critters. Once a mouse got in my car and made a nest. Another time, a cat got in through a downed window, got into a bag of Taco Bell, then shit all over the interior. Also, I would sometimes give rides to my grandma, and later I’d find high-test narcotics that she’d put in her pocket, because you know who just carries around a few Oxys at all times? Druggies and old people.

By far the worst messes, however, were caused by my love of fishing. Ideally, you take something like a beat-up Ford Ranger on trips to the lake, but, well, you run what you brung. So I would toss rods and tackle boxes in the backseat of the Neon and go. Fishing can get gross, especially if you keep ‘em. One time, a container full of nightcrawlers (large earthworms) opened and they escaped, only to burrow under the carpeting and die. That was bad enough, but far worse was the container of chicken livers I left in the backseat after a catfishing trip (this is fishing for channel and flathead catfish, not the other kind). The container was sealed, but had been left unnoticed under a jacket for nearly a week…in July…in a car without AC. The following weekend, I had offered to carry cases of soda to a venue for a church event. I was tossing 24-packs of Coke into the backseat when I heard a “pop”. Green-tinted congealed chicken blood sprayed the rear of the Neon. The smell, oh Lord the smell. It was like Lucifer’s own diarrhea had been unleashed inside my car. I tried everything I could think of – industrial-strength cleaners, air fresheners, even considered finding the backseat out of another Neon (thank God I had a rear seat cover that I could throw away). It took months for the smell to reach tolerable levels. I dreaded rainy days when I’d have to roll up the windows.

These days, I just have the Caravan and all the weird shit my kid does in it. I live like a pig in there, too – I just spilt ranch dipping sauce into the center console trying to eat and run a few days ago. But at least I cover the middle seats and keep a rubber mat on the rear cargo area. I’ve been able to take care of it mostly. There was an incident a few months ago with an iced coffee that left a mess. I thought I had cleaned it up well enough, but after a few days I could smell that sour coffee-and-cream smell. I borrowed an ozone machine on a co-worker’s recommendation, and you know what? Those things are effing magic.