the tank is clean... THE TANK IS CLEAN!

Title of this entry is quote from this movie.

You've got day-to-day bathroom cleaning, and then you've got serious cleaning. I did the latter today. On the floor, in the bowl, around the bowl, in the sink, in the shower.. ever'where. It was a bit overdue.

Yes, me, the guy who lived like an absolute slob in Connecticut keeps his castle mostly tidy these days. You wouldn't believe it but it's true. And no, I'm not a neat freak. Pff.. shyeah right. But I honestly think I give a good effort, and it shows.

Speaking of tidy, I'm doing a mostly-good job of keeping my truck clean.

Said honestly, there's absolutely no reason to have a dirty car in Florida - except in the month of June. More on that in a moment.

In Connecticut I would purposely not give a crap about the way my car looked during the winter. Why? Because no one else does. First the snow comes, then comes the time where all you're driving around in is brown mush (sand + snow). After the snow dries, you've got dry sand all over the road that cakes up on your car after that.

You can also use this time as a great excuse not to clean the inside of your car either. Who wants to clean their car in the cold, even if you do have a garage? All that's going to happen is that you're going to track mud in your car anyway, so why bother?

In Florida you basically have no excuse. If your car is dirty, it's because you're lazy. Unless you're next to the beach or drive near there often, there's basically nothing to get your car dirty, save for neglect. The only time where it's okay to have a non-clean car is during June. That's love-bug/June-bug season. One month out the year your car will be plastered with these little black bugs and it's pointless to wash your car more than once a week. However, it is smart to carry a rag and some solvent to wash your windshield so you can stop every so often and clean your glass easier, because those squeegees at the fuel stations just don't cut it. I use a Rain-X foaming cleanser that comes with its own rag. Very handy. But I digress.

I keep the interior of my truck mostly clean, but you'll usually find lots of crumpled receipts strewn about behind the seats and sometimes under the seats. You may also find empty cigarette pack or two and the all-too-common empty Wal-Mart plastic bag. These white plastic bags mysteriously find their way behind the seats, and then (of course) fly up and start doing laps around the interior of my truck when the sunroof is open while driving.

Once a month I usually buckle down and spend a good twenty minutes getting all those crumpled pieces of paper out of there. The trash that accumulates in my truck isn't gross by any means, but it does add up over time.

Something else I do here in FL that I never did in CT is carry a bottle of Windex and a roll of those super-thick blue paper towels you get at the auto stores behind the seats. It's for my side glass and mirrors. Because there's more rain down here, the glass gets water-spotted very easily. Some people do look at me funny when I break out the bottle of blue stuff and the towels at the fuel stations, but I can guarantee that unless they've just come out of a carwash, I can see better while driving than they can.

Speaking of which, I really should run my truck thru the carwash this week.