The Mathematician/Scientist In Me…

I’m contemplating a trip back to school to get an additional degree in math or science.  Because I keep coming up with these equations and formulas that are going to revolutionize the world. 

Here’s my latest:

The more relaxing the vacation = the more horrendous the reentry.

Stated another way:

The amount of fun had while away is always < the amount of trouble that awaits upon arriving home.

Let me illustrate.

Last Tuesday I was floating on my back in the warm turquoise waters of the ocean off the coast of a Caribbean island. {Side note: I have just learned that I am an adept floater.  I can do it for hours with very little effort.  I’m just buoyant like that.} I had not a care in the world.

While I was happily floating in my little beachy dreamland, an occurrence so horrendous was taking place back at home that the aftershocks will be with us for some time.

Fast forward to Monday morning, a mere seven hours after our very late-night arrival back home.

The three biggies are off to school.  Owlie and I have spent a relaxing morning reading and sorting through the mail, playing together and snuggling while discussing how much we missed each other. I feel confident that this reentry is going to go off without a hitch.

I head out to get something from the van.  Upon stepping into the garage I am assaulted with an odor that is highly questionable.  I look around for a misplaced potato or a half-eaten piece of rotten fruit but see nothing. I silently wonder which of my children has hidden the reeking evidence and vow to make them clean it up.

I open the van door and  am immediately hit in the face with a stench  so powerful it to knocks me backwards and almost makes me lose my breakfast on the garage floor.  My first thought is that an animal has crawled into the van and died.

Covering my nose with my pajama top, I open both garage doors and all the van doors, saving the rear for last.  It is there that I discover what karma has done for me while I vacationed in the Caribbean.

A half gallon of milk spilled in the back on my way home from my run to Costco the day before I left.  It sat there soaking in the carpet of the van, which sat locked up in my garage FOR AN ENTIRE AND UNSEASONABLY WARM WEEK. When I found it, it was curdled, thick, yellow and putrid.  And it has decided to stay with our family for a very long time.

I spent the rest of Monday morning at a VERY expensive car wash having my carpet steam cleaned.  It helped. But only a little.  The curdled part is gone.  The stench remains.

Owlie gagged the entire way to the car wash despite the fact that all the windows were down and I was armed with a bottle of Febreeze which I sprayed approximately every two minutes.  I thought, “Oh well, if he pukes, we’ll just have them clean that up too.”

Now every time we get in the car Owlie emphatically states: “P.U. Momma! It stinky in here.” And he’s right.  It smells like Windex, Febreeze and sour milk.

I’m looking for any and all good suggestions for cleaning up this mess.  Let me know readers, what would you do?

You know when you’ve got a carton of sour milk in the fridge and you smell it even though you know it’s sour?  And then you smell it again just to make sure?  Yeah, I get to do that every single day.

Vacation is over for sure.