My car used to be a car. You know, leather seats that smelled vaguely like “new” and that feeling of pride when people got in and said, “ooh, nice.” Those days are dead. My car is now a mobile kitchen, trash can, changing room, jungle gym, and apparently a long-term storage unit for Goldfish crackers. And I swear, it will smell like them until the day it’s hauled off to the junkyard.
Goldfish are the currency of childhood. They are the universal peace treaty, the thing that stops tantrums mid-scream. Drop a handful into a snack cup and you’ve basically bought yourself 10 minutes of quiet. Maybe 15 if you’re lucky. But the cost? Eternal orange dust. Everywhere. In the seats, under the mats, ground into the seatbelt buckle so deep I’m convinced they’ll find fossilized cheddar dust there one day.
And then there’s the smell. That faint, stale-cheese scent that no amount of air freshener can cover. I’ve tried everything. Febreze? Just made it smell like “Cheddar Fields in Bloom.” Car wash detailing? They vacuumed and handed it back with a polite smile, like, “we did what we could.” I once left a vanilla-scented candle in there overnight (don’t ask, I was desperate). Now it just smells like a Goldfish birthday cake.
The kids don’t even notice. Nico crunches away like he’s auditioning for a Goldfish commercial, while Anthony treats the backseat like his personal buffet. Once, I caught him pulling crackers out of the cupholder like it was a snack drawer. He was so proud too, holding it up like, “look, mom, treasure!” Meanwhile, I nearly cried into the steering wheel.
Rex? He thinks it’s hilarious. He sits in the passenger seat, sipping his soda, smirking like, “this is just life now.” He doesn’t care that when I brake too hard, stale crackers rain down from the mysterious black hole that is the gap between the seats. He doesn’t care that I’ve basically accepted Goldfish as a permanent part of our family. If there’s ever a family portrait painted, I want one little cracker in the corner, because that’s how real it is.
Sometimes, when I’m driving alone, I’ll reach over to grab my coffee, and there it is—just one, single, sad Goldfish, staring at me from the cupholder. Like it’s mocking me. Like it knows I gave up years ago. I used to clean them out daily. Now I just think, “eh, protein?” and keep going.
But here’s the wild thing: as much as I complain, I kind of love it. The mess, the smell, the little reminders that this is the season I’m in. One day the car will be quiet, clean, maybe even smell like leather again. And I’ll miss the crumbs, the noise, the chaos in the backseat. (Okay, maybe not the smell. That can go.) But the rest of it? These years where my kids are still little and Goldfish crackers are the answer to everything? I know I’ll wish I had them back.
So yeah, my car smells like Goldfish crackers. Always will. And honestly, I think I’ve just accepted it as part of my identity now. Some women wear Chanel No. 5. I wear Eau de Goldfish.