Funky Town

In the Spring baseball season, the trunk of my car becomes game day storage space.  There are umbrellas, portable chairs, water bottles, sports equipment (he's a catcher, so that's body bag full of stuff) and, quite frankly, whatever detritus JT can contrive to leave in the car, much of it trapped under the baseball bag so I can't see what he's left behind without upending the whole mess.

The boy is a bit of a pig and he uses the car as a locker for his stuff.  Case in point: this little pocket in the side of the front passenger door, where he stows any number of things he doesn't want to deal with anymore.

Last week, I issued a warning about his mess and it went something like this: "clean your crap out of the car."  JT looked hurt, as if he couldn't imagine why I would say such a thing.  On Thursday night, we went directly from a school lacrosse game to one of his baseball games.  Both games were played in the rain and at some point, JT pulled off a pair of wet, sweaty socks.  I saw him do it but, ever the optimist, I assumed he would remember to bring the dirty socks out of the car.  

On Friday morning, we got in the car to go to school and there was an overwhelming stench in the air.  "What is that?" I asked.  JT claimed that he had no idea.  We rode to school with the windows down and I made clear that the car was being cleaned out at the end of the day. 

At mid-day I ran an errand and was reminded anew of the stench, which actually seemed worse than before.  I grabbed a plastic grocery sack JT had abandoned in the trunk and started removing JT's mess when I found these two socks under his seat.

Problem identified.  And the best most horrifying part of this entire story is that for our drive to school on Friday, he sat in the seat just above the dreadful socks he had left in the car with nary a clue about the source of the foul smell.  

That boy (shakes fist).