Sucker From the Future

I must write quickly, for I go to clean my wife's car. I do not know how it will end. I only know that there will be a reckoning - and it will be epic.

My wife will likely read this entry at some point. Because she knows me, she will dismiss my opening sentence as hyperbole and exaggeration. But I tell you this:

The interior of my wife's car smells like winos have lived in it, slept in it and urinated in it.

No, that's not quite right.

It smells like winos lived in it, slept in it, urinated in it and were eventually chased out by a feral wolverine family who also urinated in it to unsuccessfully remove the smell of the winos.

I don't blame my wife for most of this; I blame my children. Those three kids have lost more food inside that car than most small countries need to subsist for a year, provided, of course, that the small country lives entirely on chicken nuggets and french fries.

Perhaps "lost" is the wrong word. Indeed, I've begun to suspect a kid conspiracy. "Lost" implies an accidental river of food flotsam and jetsam flowing inch by inch through the car and eventually depositing itself on some delta, perhaps a bumper.

This does not happen. I know this food is not "lost" because my kids "find" it with amazing regularity.

The other day, I looked in my rear view mirror and noticed that my three year-old daughter was enjoying one of those weirdly fluorescent bank suckers.

"Hmmm," I thought. "I don't remember getting that at that bank."

I almost jammed on the brakes. We hadn't been to the bank in three weeks. And I had cleaned out the car a week previously, scouring the car for hidden caches of junk and junk food.

"Riley!" I yelled. "Get that thing out of your mouth!"

And she did exactly that. When I got home, I pulled her out of her car seat and looked for the sucker. It had vanished.

So, I'm going out the clean the car again. I will take my usual complement of weapons, some of which you don't normally see used on car - a mop, for instance. I don't expect to find that bank sucker. I imagine that a thousand years from now, an archaeologist will pore over our ancient car using lasers and other futuristic crap. She will turn around to check on her daughter (in the future, kids are allowed to hang around lasers) and she will see her daughter contentedly working on that ancient bank sucker.

And it will still be fluorescent.