Long gone are the days from my single-life when I would spend all Saturday afternoon washing my car, polishing the dashboard and gear-shift, even dusting off the 8-track tape case. My responsibilities were few and far between and having a clean car to cruise town on Saturday night was a must.

Life has changed. Now I simply hope to have clean underwear by Saturday night and more importantly that my little girls are dried and polished.

Beer cans may have cluttered my car at one point, but even back in my party days I remember upon reselling my first car, the new buyer remarked how clean it was looked inside. “You’ve taken great care of it,” she said admiring her new purchase. And I had, but those days are long gone.

I’m no longer Queen of the Clean Car. Even after my first-born, I still had good intentions and managed to vacuum it a few times a year, but the second came along and it was all downhill from there. Another task seemed to always take priority and “maybe we’ll clean the car next week” became the norm. Trouble was “next week” was much like the last and sometimes even worse.

“Mama” (that’s me) and my girls do a lot of traveling together. We go to and from preschool five days a week and my Jeep is usually the family’s weekend get-away car. I’ll be the first to admit that the kind of garbage discovered last week in “mama’s car” was revolting.

I pulled the backseat down for easy access with the vacuum only to be gagged all the more. Behind the seat and in every crevice were melted M&Ms, crushed Mini-Wheats, thousands of Smarties, Fun Meal toys, dirty socks, broken Dora sunglasses, Fruit Loops, several pages of hand-painted, skillfully-created preschool art, two unsigned permission slips, a forgotten fund-raiser form from two years ago, and of course, the always-dreaded overlooked milk sippy cup.

But it’s clean now, Windex-ed and Armor-All wiped right down to the last chocolate-smudge hand-print. And, I’ve since laid down a few new rules with again, good intentions. I could insist no food in the car, but that wouldn’t last a day.

The new rules: no mobile milk sippies and all excess trash disposed of on day of creation. Girls, let’s see how long you and “mama” can keep it clean.

nMelody Brunson, editor of the Times-Herald since 1989, is also executive editor of a new magazine in Knox County, Boomer, for baby boomer-aged men and women. She recently wondered aloud if Gov. Mitch Daniels had ever tried to put children to bed at 9:30 p.m. when it was still daylight outside.