I’m late but hope this still counts. Shannon has been doing Works for Me Wednesday for ages. I think it’s a fabulous idea but I never quite get my stuff together on the actual Wednesday so then I feel silly posting something that works for me on a day that the alliteration wouldn’t work as well.
Then Wednesday comes around and nothing seems to be working for me so I don’t post anything. Now I have read and loved Shannon since long before she became the mighty force of internet rock-stardom that she is today and it tickles me pink to present my very first WFMW 3 minutes before midnight Pacific Standard Time.
It works for me to have diapers, hand sanitizer and fruity cheerios on hand when I need them. If you don’t think you could ever NEED fruity cheerios, then I think you should check your kids to see if they’re cyborgs or hippies or something.
I usually keep the essentials in my giant diaper bag of an excuse for a purse, but every once in a while we’re out on the town and I notice I forgot to remember to restock my bag. Never you fear because I have everything I need right at my fingertips in a little plastic basket beside the driver’s seat.
Today I was driving around and Magoo said, “Here you go mama!” and gleefully tried to hand me a rather ominous booger. I pulled a piece of toilet paper from the basket, snagged the goob and disposed of it in my very own suspended garbage receptacle, an item that also works for me quite nicely.
Dan was the first to install one of these in the car and I find it simply ingenious. Instructions for installation are as follows:
1. Make a grocery list.
2. Gather up the children and rubber lizards from your house, put them in the car and drive to the store.
3. Unpack the kids, force them to hold your hand across the street and take them into the store.
4. Jam their writhing wriggling legs into a shopping cart and strap them in.
5. Buy milk, at least three things from your shopping list, Diet Dr. Pepper and cookies.
6. Just say no to 3 types of high fructose insanity in the checkout line while reading about all the celebrities who may or may not be pregnant.
7. Pull the money out of your shirt and pay for groceries.
8. Head for home.
9. Let your kids pull all but one bag of groceries along the cobblestone driveway until the bags shred and the food spills all over the place.
10. Remember to put the milk in the fridge within 4-6 hours of arriving home.
11. Smell it each time you drink it until you imagine it’s probably rotten and then throw it out, even though it just smells like milk.
12. Take the one grocery bag you saved from certain death back out to the car.
13. Thread the handles over the arm rests of the front captains’ chairs.
14. Fill it with debris, wrappers, boogers and polly pocket shoes.
15. Repeat.
These things work for me. And it’s Wednesday.
Wow, who knew those things were so versatile. Do I really have to take the rubber lizzards to the store with me to make this work?
only you …. only you
Love it! Or, should I say… “works for me!?!”
Well, I can die a happy woman now. The DYM did a WFMW. Life is good.
😉
The plastic bag between the seats works for me too! We do the same thing! But I’m terrible about keeping diapers and wipes and such on hand, and I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been caught without! I really need to make a little tub like that in my car with all the necessities.
What happens when you have to make a mad dash to the back of the van (to…oh…let’s just say…catch vomit in a paper towel) and get tangled in the suspended trash recepticle?
Do kids EVER outgrow The Booger Years? ACK!!!
Too many WFMW ideas in the is post!
-Make a list
-Take the kids
-Say no to high fructose things
-Let kids unload car
-Smell milk? Ummm no thanks or it would always go down the drain…
-Take reusable bag to car
-Actually use bag as trashcan rather than something to be ignored
Brilliant!
Great idea! My diaper bag is my purse/garbage can/catchall, too.
Very funny!
So funny. I’m thinking I need to adopt your little plastic basket-o-essentials idea, but I’m going to wear it on my person at all times–maybe strapped to my hip like a toolbelt. And I can hang the grocery sack off the back of my neck.
Love the basket in the car idea. Not sure the garbage bag would work because I’m sure my son wouln’t leave it alone.
My in-laws turned me on to the plastic bag thing. Target bags work best! They are big and insanely strong. My mom-van is still trashed but at least a higher percentage of the trash is in the target bags.
4-6 hours? Aww heck.
I happen to know, hippies love fruity cheerios. And peanut butter.
I love your instructions for installation. I have one of those trash recepticles in my sweet ride—but I’ll have to get on the emergency box. Great idea, thanks for sharing
Well, Julie Q, I have a friend who does just that. She buys a $.99 canvas tool belt from home Depot and fills it with all the essentials; tissues, wet wipes, chapsticks, granola bars, sunblock, bug repellant, bandaids, etc. She is the most popular person at girls’ camp, I can tell you.
K…I love you!
My sis does the “basket between the seats” thing, too, and it works GREAT! She puts lotion and the book she’s reading in there too, in case she’s ever ALONE (heaven forbid!) and has to wait somewhere.
And, um, any installation instructions that begin with “make a grocery list” are ok with me.
You really should patent that. Now, I’m running to my car to see if I have armrests in betweent he two front seats . . . I can’t remember!
That? Would not work for me… my kids would dismantle that well stoked basket of necessity in three hot seconds. My kids are mean. You are cool. the end.
I think I meant “stocked.”
“10. Remember to put the milk in the fridge within 4-6 hours of arriving home.” Is is amazing how long that stuff can last on the sitting on front steps of your house, isn’t it?
Bon, I like stoked better. Hang ten, dude!
So funny and so true! I enjoyed your post. Have a nice weekend.
We do the bag between the seat thing as well. Not so much the diapers avnd wipes – they’d freeze in our -40 winters and never thaw out!
Very clever and funny step-by-step.
My little E. is always pulling boogers out of her nose and saying, “Booger. EW!” Well… then don’t DO that.