The Impossible Cleaning

Newsletter 2026-07-27

It was the most important thing I had to do. That’s why I worked so hard not to do it.

I promised myself that I would clean my van as soon as I had a weekend where it wasn’t too hot outside. That seemed like a safe bet. We’re deep in July. Things weren’t expected to cool down in August, or ever. It was the only time I’ve ever rooted for climate change. I figured that, by the time the weather was actually pleasant outside, I would either forget or be dead. The upside of a finite existence is that my obligations to the chore list will eventually come to an end. For a few weeks, my unreasonable list of preconditions served me well. Then, Saturday, I went outside to do my usual slate of yard chores. Adulthood is just replacing the things you don’t want to do with other things you don’t want to do slightly less. It was almost too cold to mow the lawn. I froze, and not just because of the temperature. At that moment, I realized that I was out of excuses to avoid what I’d claimed I’d wanted to do for weeks. It was time to detail my van. That wasn’t rock bottom; it was the layer of dirt and grime hiding underneath it.

I had been so eager to avoid this particular task that I had tried to pay someone to do it. That’s a huge step for me. The only thing I hate more than doing chores is giving someone else money to perform them on my behalf. I agreed to pay a car detailer $250 for the unenviable task of cleaning out my minivan. For reference, my emergency room co-pay is $500, an amount I’m only willing to pay when I’m about to die. I considered detailing my van to be worth exactly half of my life. After agreeing to pay an arm, a leg, and one and a half kidneys, the car detailer ghosted me, as I described in a previous newsletter. I understand why they bailed. My van had reached the point where I couldn’t guarantee that my passengers wouldn’t pick up a new, unique disease that evolved in the second or third row. The inside of my van had the same biohazard rating as a mosquito-filled swap. Out of time and false pretexts, I pulled out my cleaning supplies Saturday morning. I braced myself for what was sure to be the worst day of my life.

With a mess of that magnitude, it’s hard to know where to start. I let gravity be my guide. When cleaning the house, Lola has impressed upon me that I need to dust first and then vacuum, not the other way around. The idea is that I should knock those tiny particles to the ground and then suck them up. You’d think that’d be intuitive, but my inclination was always to vacuum first. As a guy, I like to start with the loudest and most mechanically complex part of the process. If I’m not making as much noise as possible, am I even cleaning? According to my kids, no. All of their chore sessions sound like active war zones. In the van, I began with the windows. That was the highest part of the vehicle I was actually going to clean. It didn’t occur to me to clean the liner on the ceiling. I assumed it wasn’t dirty because I never look up. For all I know, my kids have been doing handstands in muddy shoes. There are worse ways to kill time on a road trip. If the ceiling liner is covered in footprints, they’ll have to wait until the next time I get around to cleaning my van. I’m sure it will only be another decade or two.

I had excellent tools for dealing with the windows. I purchased a large pack of microfiber cloths for just this occasion. We already had some microfiber cloths, but one time many years ago I got in trouble for using them to clean the wrong thing. I don’t remember what that thing was, which is why I’ve been scared to touch those cloths ever since. In marriage terms, my transgression was roughly as bad as using the good scissors. I’m lucky Lola didn’t divorce me on the spot. I didn’t have to worry about ruining the fabric rectangles I bought for myself, and ruin them I would. Nothing that came in contact with my van would survive the process. To go with those overpriced rags, I had a car window cleaner recommended by my father-in-law, Bob. His main hobby, besides fixing people’s houses for free, is cleaning vehicles. When he’s done with them, they are more pristine than when they left the factory floor. There’s another level of car condition besides new and used called “too good to be in this plane of existence.” Naturally, Bob had a favorite window spray. Every man does at his age. The bottle promised that it could make a brick wall transparent. I used it inside my van and could barely tell the difference, likely because I only cleaned the inside of the windows. The outside of the van is a lost cause that I’ve abandoned to the elements. For glass to be clear, you have to wash both sides. I gave up and moved on to the next step. I’m an expert at failing my way all the way through to the end.

Photo by GoGoNano on Unsplash

Next, I used an orange multi-purpose cleaner that we use in the bathrooms. If it could handle a toilet, it could handle my van, or so I hoped. I sprayed it across every plastic surface, which was most of the van. The only metal in modern vehicles is the clasp on the seatbelts. I cleared off what seemed like an impossible amount of dust from the dashboard. If I had piled it all in one place, I could have built a new island in the ocean. I also used the orange cleaner for scrubbing scuff marks. There were a lot. Apparently, besides handstands, my kids’ main activities in the back of the van are flying kicks and soccer. Some of the scuff marks came off, giving me the first visible sign of progress. More importantly, the orange liquid had an antiseptic smell, making the van seem clean even if it actually wasn’t. All I wanted was the illusion of results. I could have achieved the same thing by misting that spray inside the van and sealing it up overnight. If someone wants to make a million dollars, they should sell that fragrance as a dangling air freshener.

With the easy stuff out of the way, I moved on to the step I was dreading the most: cleaning the floor. It was the final resting place of every piece of litter that had entered my van over the last five years. The one special feature of my van, which is the most barebones trim package of the most basic model, is thick, all-weather floor mats. They’re rated for category five hurricanes and children. I thought they might protect at least some of the floor. Instead, the dirt fell on the edges and vibrated its way underneath them over time, where it was preserved and protected like a mosquito in amber. I plugged in my longest extension cord and dragged my indoor vacuum to the parking slab behind my house. In no time at all, I sucked up enough dirt to fill three dump trucks. I was grateful that I hadn’t gone with my first plan of pulling out the mats and pressure washing them without vacuuming them first. There was too much material on top. Adding water first would have caused a mud slide.

After an hour or so of vacuuming, I finally removed enough material to see the rubber mats. To my surprise, my van didn’t have a dirt floor. I had to Google how to remove them. Nothing with cars is ever simple. There were hidden latches I had to pry up with a screw driver. I was lucky that was even in option. In a few years, I’m sure removing the mats will require a subscription service and a proprietary tool kit. Even that might be a luxury. Before long, even having a floor might be a costly upgrade. The default option will be to scramble your feet on the road like Fred Flintstone.

Once I got the mats out of the van, I fired up my pressure washer. It doesn’t actually wash with fire, but saying I watered it up doesn’t sound right. After my extensive vacuuming, I expected the mats to be somewhat clean. Once again, I couldn’t have been more wrong. The rubber furrows were filled with a sticky gunk that hadn’t been visible in the shadows of the van’s interior. It looked like my kids had melted gummy worms into new molds. I was amazed that anyone had been able to walk across them without getting stuck like they had stepped on fly paper. I blasted away. Most of it came off eventually. Only one spot of what looked like ancient ketchup held firm. I hit it with the highest pressure setting. I got it off, but not before I realized I had shredded the rubber underneath. It looked like it had lost a fight with an angry wolverine. I don’t think any of my passengers will ever notice. The only way you can survive a ride with me is if you never look at anything too closely. More observant passengers should take the bus.

After stretching out my pressure washing time for as long as possible, it was time to move on to my third piece of heavy equipment for the day: the carpet cleaner. If you ever see me pull it out, you know there’s trouble. I only retrieve it from the basement a few times a year. Our dining room carpet has been through four kids, two dogs, and three pigs. If something happens to make it dirty enough for us to notice, the only solution is nuking it from orbit. Since our insurance won’t cover that, the carpet cleaner is the next best option. I dragged it out to the parking slab and installed the upholstering attachment, which I had never used before. The current state of my couch should make that obvious. I filled it with water and a cleaning solution and got to work. Almost immediately, I noticed I was cleaning the concrete slab more than the inside of the van. I must have attached something incorrectly. The carpet cleaner was leaking water fast. By then, I was six hours into cleaning my van, which was five and a half hours past the point when I had lost the patience to troubleshoot. My solution was to refill the water tank a bunch of times and go as fast as possible. With the van already vacuumed, I could always go back and do a better job cleaning the upholstery on a future weekend, which is a nice way of saying I’m never getting back to it. To the surprise of no one, I didn’t succeed at removing any of the stains on the seats, but I did manage to make those seats slightly damp. That’s almost the same as clean. I called that a win and quit.

When my kids got in the van later that afternoon, they were shocked by what they saw. The comforting, familiar dirt and melted candy were replaced by sterile plastic. They had spent five years getting the van just the way they liked it, and I had messed it up. I’m sure they’ll have it back to its old state in no time at all. Then I can clean it again, but only if something more important doesn’t get in the way. If I put it off for long enough, maybe the sun will explode first.

Anyway, that’s all I’ve got for now. Catch you next time.

James