Vacuuming a car doesn’t suck

Cleaning cat litter bins is a distant second.

On an episode of Hot Ones last month, Kristen Bell talked about how she tries to change the verbiage around what could be mundane or annoying tasks and reframes her whole day with happiness. “I don’t have to drive my kids to the orthodontist, I get to drive them to the orthodontist.”

My wife and I are in the midst of organizing and planning for a road trip to Florida in two days. And while the trip itself promises to be exciting, the planning and execution are often stressful. She handles most of the details so I really shouldn’t complain that much, but the stress of my to-do list is still there.

I found Bell’s philosophy useful earlier today when I went to check off one of the pre-trip items that is always on my list: vacuuming the minivan.

I don’t have to vacuum the minivan, I get to vacuum the minivan.

Once I found myself in the Kristen Bell mindset, It didn’t take me long to realize a simple truth: vacuuming a car is super fun. Or it can be. For me, there are two additional requirements.

1. Unlimited vacuum time. No nonsense fumbling around in my pocket for quarters or swiping my debit card through a rickety machine that inevitably flashes a message that it couldn’t talk to my bank (or won’t talk to my bank, probably because of a torrid affair the two had back in the ‘oughts). In my case, a cheap car wash buys me as much suckage as I can handle.

2. Industrial strength vacuums. Firehose-level of suckage, not the piddly little tubes that most gas stations have.

Also, it doesn’t hurt that my local car wash/vacuum palace has the perfect name—Golden Nozzle.

I attempted to apply this same philosophy to my next pre-trip task: emptying and washing the cat litter bins. While I wouldn’t put this at the same level of fun as vacuuming the car, it certainly helped take the edge off it.

So thanks, Kristen, for lightening the load a little today. If I can ever do anything for you, don’t hesitate to ask.

❤️
Adam