attack of the fruit flies

So, it’s Sunday and I am driving with my girls to spend the day with my parents…A has some work to catch up on.

“Mommy, there are a lot of flies back here,” says Cinderalla. I look in the rear view mirror and see all three girls grimacing and wildly swatting at the air in effort to fight off a swarm of fruit flies.

“Yeah, Mommy. Hundreds of them!” adds Jasmine.

And I realize that we must have left a piece of fruit in the mini-van somewhere, hidden beneath a seat perhaps.

When I arrive at my parents’ house a full 45 minutes later, my dad offers to search for the culprit. Cinderella follows to help.

In fact, it turns out that she knows exactly where an old banana peel has been stashed…inside a compartment next to one of the car seats. Confident in her knowledge, she points to the compartment.

When my father opens the lid, thousands of fruit flies swoosh out. After we toss out the now-black and rotting banana peel, I decide I really should clean out the inside of our mini-van. Everybody—even the girls—pitches in.

My dad says we could feed a family of four in a third world country on the amount of food we find. Below is a list of some of what turns up during our cleaning. Please keep in mind that this is the state of our car despite definitively moderate to strong efforts at staying on top of things.

whole graham crackers
a whole Christmas cookie
a gazillion peanuts
a handful of small twigs (curious)
Cheerios
jelly beans
two missing gloves, each from a different pair
an old sock
one Hello Kitty hair barrette
crumbs of an indiscernible nature
a bottle of water
a long stem rose
ten acorns (hmmm)
a dozen or so colorful beads
melted chocolate candy, some with caramel (to be expected)
stickers
sticker books
melted crayons
a number of dried-out markers
marker lids
more crumbs of an indiscernible nature

All in all, I think that’s not half bad, considering…

multiples
parenting