When Your Car Smells Like A Toilet

I learned an important lesson yesterday. If you car smells like a toilet, check your diaper bag.

See, Little Bird doesn't get to go grocery shopping with me very often. I try to go while she is in her morning program so I only have to deal with the little guy. But we were desperate for milk, and her school was closed on Friday because of the holiday weekend. Yay for me.

So off we went. We happened by the meat counter at the very same moment when our favorite butcher glanced up to say hello. He recognized my daughter because the last time we shopped together she had insisted on seeing the butcher and the baker. Thank god she believed me that our local market does not have a candlestick maker.

Said butcher thought she was so cute that he gave her some shrimp to eat. Now my two year-old said that she liked shrimp. And I give her tons of credit for even taking a bite. But we got about four aisles over when she asked to spit it out. Cool. Like I said, I felt pretty proud that my two year-old would even try it.

But here we were again, and Butcher asked her if she wanted more shrimp. She said yes. Fuck. I did not have the heart to tell him that she was only saying yes to please him, but I was already taking a mental inventory of my pockets and diaper bag because I knew where this was going.

This time he only gave her two shrimp. Last time he gave her somewhere along the lines of 30 cocktail shrimp. I kid you not. This time it was only two--but they were the big prawns, with tail on. She took a bite of one as we said thank you. I had the foresight to grab a plastic produce bag as we began walking. Once out of earshot, I asked if she wanted to spit. She told me no and kept chewing. Impressive.

Until five aisles later, I hear the "Mom?..." and she wants to spit it out. She valiantly chewed on it for a good three to four minutes. Again, I was proud and told her that she had done a great job tasting it. That it was good to try things.

She had no problem letting me eat the remainder of the shrimp. Yum! I put the remaining tails in the plastic bag...looked for a trash can...oops, my turn to pay...keep baby from jumping out of seat...keep toddler sitting in wagon...stash plastic bag in diaper bag...here is your receipt ma'am...let's go load up the car...

Can you see where this is going?

So yesterday we decide to hit the beach with the kids and a friend. We get into the Jeep, and I look at my husband. Oh my GOD, I say. It smells like SHIT in here. And I do not mean shit and in "something nasty." I mean it smelled like someone had smeared fecal matter somewhere on my upholstery and left it to bake in the sun. I sort of poked around to see if there were any stray diapers about, but I have not changed the kids in the tailgate in a while so didn't look too hard.

The mystery was solved at the beach when I opened up my diaper bag to get something. Huh. What is this plastic bag? Oh. Ohhhhhh! Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

If our fellow beach-goers wonder how they got so badly burned it was because the giant lightbulb that went off over my head flash burned them.

So the lesson learned was: Don't throw shrimp tails into a plastic bag and put them in your diaper bag. If you do, do not leave said bag for 36 hours on your living room floor in your non-airconditioned house where the inside temp reads 86 degrees. If you do that anyway, do not get into a confined space with coworkers from hubbie's job. They will either think that you never change your kids' diapers, that you never clean out your car, or that you have a serious hygiene issue that you need to see your doctor about.