Splat the mat no more!
I think we are spending more and more time in transit these days - whether chugging along on a subway commute or gripping a wheel through hours of traffic to get to the job we don’t actually wish to be at in the first place. And people who spend so much time in the car tend to make a pig sty of it.
Stains that range from a spilled latte or dropped mascara wand to the leftover Thai takeout that spilled onto your carpet can make your car more of a nightmare prison than a home away from home.
And let’s face it, no matter how great your hair cut and your new coat, if you are driving away in a dirty, smelly, mess…it’s going to reflect on you. In fact, a recent survey by YES Essentials show that nearly eight in ten drivers (77%) believe that the inside of someone’s car tells them a lot more about a person’s interests and lifestyle. When it comes to women’s “inferior interior” in the car, the study shows they are more sensitive to this issue than men. More than one in two (53%) have issued a warning to potential passengers, vs. just 43 percent of men. In fact, nearly two out of five drivers (37 percent) admit that they would be embarrassed to drive around someone who they wanted to impress!
There seems to not be a ready solution to putting an end to our hurried lifestyles (alas, I may never have a weekend off again!), but my awesome new friends at YES Essentials do have the answer to keeping the interior of the car (and perhaps thus our scattered heads) clean! The proprietary technology is engineered into the fabric, not sprayed on. YES Essentials is the only high-performance line of automobile fabrics and carpets that resists stains, odor and static and for the first time, custom-made seat covers and floor mats are available at YESessentials.com. (Check out Splatthemat.com to see how messy YES Essentials fabric can get, and still look new!)
YES Essentials has a special surprise for our crazed and haried Alytude readers - one grand prize winner will receive a complete set of floor mats and seat covers for the winner’s vehicle (worth $500+!). The products are custom-made, so the winner will have to submit the make, model, year, and interior color of their vehicle when notified of their prize. And two runner-ups will receive an awesome prize as well - - one for a complete set of floor mats, and another for a complete set of seat covers!
I will choose the winner by March 10th based on the following info:
1 - Send me a tale of the absolute grossest mess you ever created in your car - or saw in someone else’s. (Extra credit for photo recreations.)
2 - Show you love me (well, at least more than your clutter)! Scroll back and tell me three topics I have written about in the last week, and what, if anything, you learned from any of them.
This is a *really* good one, so feel free to bribe and flatter at will… 
PointsandPrizes.com Keyword: HURRIED worth 25 points good through 03/09/08.
Not a member? Join Points and Prizes now for more free stuff!
Fun fact! Aly Walansky wrote this story just for you on March 3rd, 2008 |
March 3rd, 2008 at 12:06 pm
1. only one tale of terror? let’s see, i drive 120+ miles per day, five days a week for work. there are a LOT of meals eaten while driving (rogue bits of panera sandwich, bacon, scone, lemon slice icing, etc. cascading over my lap and into the seat and mat below me) and a LOT of beverages down the hatch (and on the lap / seat / dashboard). do you know how gross half of a caramel macchiato is when bonded to the seat fibers for a couple warm days? blecch! there was also a point this summer that i was schlepping my huge 650 hp lawnmower back and forth between the new and old houses, with the windows down and grass clippings swirling through the car.
top all that off with two largish, furry dogs with inexplicable filth-magnet capabilities and you have a contender for the hairiest, muddiest, crumb-iest, old-milk-stinkiest, tornado-of-lawn-trimmings-iest auto in the whole world. the sad thing is, i really like cars and am totally a car person. this one is a ‘nice’ one - its sexy, swedish-engineered jet-like nature shouldn’t be sullied so, nor should it be destined for infamy like its predecessor:
by the time i got rid of my last car, there were pennies in the bottom of a cupholder that had been fused together by the power of spilled soda and coffee, a hardened blarb of ketchup on the steering wheel (that wouldn’t come off!), rubbery dots of steamed milk and caramel sprayed across the glove compartment and passenger door, a moldy honeycomb of kibble mortared with matted fur wedged deep into the rear seat latches, mystery goo pooled in the bottom of the passenger door storage compartment (i lost some good pens and a map to it… like the blob in creepshow 2), unretrievable french fries mummified deep in the e-brake console, and - melted into the fabric deep beneath the passenger seat - an assortment of ‘bertie botts every flavour beans’, including sardine, earwax and vomit flavors (on a hot day, or when the foot warmer was on, it was deadly).
help?
2. you’ve written about adorable bloomers hitting the VS collection, one of my cyber pet peeves (the abuse of away messages on IM), and the trials and tribulations of depending on other (crazy!) people for your relocation plans, all with your usual wit and, i daresay, a healthy helping of admirable snark.
March 3rd, 2008 at 12:10 pm
p.s. the worst thing i experienced in someone else’s was half a bottle of B vitamins spilled deep into the vents of my former employer’s car - not the sight, but the smell… most unholy!
March 3rd, 2008 at 12:43 pm
p.p.s. - forgot about the time i was taking sweet potatoes (baked in pineapple juice) to thanksgiving dinner and it sloshed over, yet i didn’t notice until the light grey carpet in the cargo area grew gummy black and brown moldy bits. it DID still smell a little pineappley though…
March 4th, 2008 at 1:45 pm
I got this beat… I am a mother of 2 screaming girls under 3 years in diapers dare i say more? Of course i must…Well my boyfriend and i had a small little honda maybe about a year and a half ago so that would make my children newborn and 1. My one year old was in the habit of taking her diapers off herself and unknowingly with a few hard rounded up balls of poop, well those balls of poop found themselves rolled out of the diaper onto our seat and floor thank god atleast for the cheetos and other disgusting childrens snacks that were bonded all around the backseat….Well make a long story short when the week was up and time to clean car not a very good surprise…But just to let you know i could really use some real seat covers for our new vehicle cause i just recently found gum from my kids melted onto our backseat not chewed and stuck but melted and i cannot remember when we had that kind of gum.
you wrote about the stupider sex well i’m sure all us women knew that but thank you for clarifying actually how idiotic they really are. Victoria secrets bloomers I could never get my butt into those unlike your xs self…lol
also the oscar hair list love it those things about celebs interest me especially the dumb stuff….
March 4th, 2008 at 2:16 pm
The grossest mess was in a friends car when we were in our late teens. one of my friends drank just a wee bit too much, Ok a whole lot too much! And she stuck her head out the window to be sick but it was windy, and her puke came back in the window. on her, the seat, the windows everything in the back seat. eww eww eww! no I do not have a picture of it. Its too gross——-T 3 topics - Bloomer madness - i learned these are not for me. lol. Hey your window is too small to type in. Guess I wing it and hope this gets through.
——–
March 4th, 2008 at 2:19 pm
gotta do this in 2 msgs. last one wouldnt allow more type.
2.Observe…
you posted about the site changes. i do like the changes. they look much better and its much easier to navigate through.
3.Style + Substance
the bubble pink USB drive is cool.
March 4th, 2008 at 4:23 pm
As a mother of three, I have had my share of major messes. One of the biggest messes I can recall was the chocolate chip cookie episode. I bought my baby daughter a giant chocolate cookie,she ate this in her car seat. She ate the cookie as did the carseat, the backseat, the carpet, the window and anything else that was in armlength of my beautiful little girl.
VS panties
healthy snacks
away messages
March 7th, 2008 at 5:41 pm
1 - Almost two years ago, I bought my boyfriend a beautiful black lab puppy for our second anniversary. About two months later, my boyfriend got an awful case of the fu. After a night of him throwing up incessantly, I (being the loving girlfriend that I am) volunteered to watch the puppy so he could recover. Because the dog was in that wiggly, crazy, in-between, almost-grown stage of puppyhood, I was concerned about my safety if I drove with the dog running around my car. So I laid down the seats in the back of my car (so he could stretch out on the top of the seats and trunk), tied his leash to a metal hook, and figured the drive home would be fine. Wrong. Unknowingly, the dog peed all over the upholstry (seats and trunk- apparently he was “marking”), shredded my graphic design portfolio, and chewed up my entire collection of 3 years worth of Vogues (I was saving them up to make a collage for a class project) that were in my trunk. Unfortunately, it was late at night and I was tired when I let the dog out of the car. I put the seats back up, and didn’t notice the awful smell until I took the dog back to his home 5 days later. The acidity of the dog pee was awful, and once those seats were put down again, it literally took 6 months to get the smell out. Unfortunately, the portfolio and magazines could not be fixed. Needless to say, the dog has not been in my car since.
2 - Victoria’s Secret new bloomer undies, annoying away messages, and Charles Worthington hair products.
March 8th, 2008 at 8:07 pm
My eccentric great aunt (that has since long passed away) lived an odd life of cheapness, collecting tons of weird collectibles and saving them for my family in her house. (Maybe that’s why we were never invited over?) Every week she would go to flea markets and roadside garage sales to collect (or sometimes sell) more junk- this was pretty much how she spent the last ten years of her life (though my family did not know this at the time). But apparently she loved it. So much so that there were several occasions when she couldn’t be bothered to get out of her car to use the bathroom, all because she couldn’t miss another sale. After she passed away, my parents inherited the car, but ended up donating it to charity because it smelled of urine so badly. Here is a picture of her at a flea market she was selling at (with her car behind her): http://i273.photobucket.com/albums/jj209/littlerunners/AuntMary.jpg
Energy drinks and chips, the Oscars, and hair stuff.
March 11th, 2008 at 12:34 am
Less than 3 months into owning my very first new car, my windshield was cracked by a stone kicked up by a giant truck in front of me on the highway. Figures. So I had to have the windshield replaced, but I could at least rest in the comfort of knowing I still had some “new car smell” time left. Turns out this wouldn’t last for long, as the new windshield was installed incorrectly–letting water sneak into my car! It was stealthy at first, but as the years went on, it was clear that rain was not my friend. I eventually got an auto glass company to correct the problem, and my poor carpets stay dry now, but they still have to incur the wrath of the late-night convenience store trips (I’m getting better about that now, but there always seems to be stray peanuts etc). Now if I can learn to stop biting my fingernails, then we’ll be in better shape. My car turns 10 this year, and what better birthday gift for it than some new mats or seat covers?
March 11th, 2008 at 12:36 am
PS: (1)you don’t think anyone will give you their last cookie. I will, unless they are girl scout thin mints, in which case they will be gone before I see you (sorry). (2) water and greens are not only essential, but they can curb hunger, and (3) now I know why I don’t see your college crew!
March 11th, 2008 at 12:39 am
It’s a van. It carries a band across the country. Band boys sleep in said van sometimes. Van is full of snacks. Four hours at a time equals lots of stops for more snacks. You can pretty much imagine what this poor vehicle has to endure.
March 11th, 2008 at 12:56 am
Jane Honda As Carbarella, lovingly referred to as Carbarella only, is now…. 14. Eep. The seals around the sunroof and the trunk are no longer tight, so when it rains whatever I have in those areas of car is likely to be stained. Her carpets, as a result, are totally mucked up. There are holes (LITERALLY HOLE–PICTURE FORTHCOMING) in the driver’s seat mat from many years of nights driving in boots and heels and various other inappropriate driving shoes to shows and work and school and etc. I’ve dropped chocolate between the seats that I forgot about and then melted in the summer heat and my bangles somehow got caught in rehardened formerly delectable chocolate goo in-between the seat and the center console. I inadvertently drink only halves of beverages in my car, and then the leftover stays for long periods of time. I think I spilled half a cup of rotten chai in poor, dear Carbarella. Or maybe it was just splashed, I don’t know. Definitely a bottled old nasty Starbucks frappucino though, I remember that one.
About a month ago, while driving to school, I had a life explosion. Literally. I had a lil container of Life cereal I was eating, and as I came to a bend my knee was not being an effective steerer so I grabbed the wheel very quickly, turned, and all of my Life cereal flew EVERYWHERE: passenger seat, cracks, floor, dashboard. And it’s still there.
People drop french fries in Carbarella (and I HATE HATE HATE potatoes and the smell of french fries) and they get lost. I’m almost terrified to clean out my car.
Add that I seriously have about 3 semesters worth of unpruned life materials in my car, and it’s just ridiculous. I swear if I had a four-door it would be way easier.
Regardless, as it stands now, Carbarella definitely desperately needs new mats, and the seat covers would be fantastic for those days when I eat Italian Wawa Hoagies with lettuce, tomato, onion, salt, pepper, oregano, hot peppers, sweet peppers, pickles, lil bit of mayo, lil bit of oil, vinegar, and mustard on the way to school and the oil and vinegar drip away and the mustard and mayo covered hot pepper falls into an area I’m scared to approach without gloves on.
Seriously though–this could SAVE MY LIFE. I could CARPOOL. I could see worth in air fresheners again. I could finally motivate myself to pay to get my seals resealed so as to ensure good things stay good. And, I would totally scour Carbarella until she felt like it was 1995 all over again.
Have I mentioned that my passenger seat headrest is still wearing my Barbarella wig from Halloween? Seriously. Need to get this life in ORDER!
March 11th, 2008 at 12:59 am
Erm, okay, things you’ve written about–a sure-fire solution to muffin-top and whale tails, complete with trolling commenters! Sweet! Starbucks has failed you and now you feel like you can never return. And the Hungry Girl thing, HOLY MACKEREL THAT’S AWESOME!
On a side note: I would so NOT save the last cookie for you (because I wouldn’t want you to blog later about how I let you have the last cookie and now you’re sitting at home in a bathrobe on a friday night
jk) but I would totally let you have the last pomegranate or lychee martini. I think that’s more important than a cookie. 
March 14th, 2008 at 10:54 pm
okay, so i finally got the pictures off my camera…
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bandie528/sets/72157604117917970/
April 4th, 2009 at 4:35 pm
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