I cleaned my car this weekend.  This is a big deal.  It happens maybe twice a year.  Some of the things I found lurking in cracks and crevices:

  • 739 receipts, mostly too worn to read
  • 14 pens
  • 3 packets of antibacterial wipes
  • $13.66 cents in change
  • A banana peel
  • 3 sippy cups
  • one sock
  • one chicken nugget
  • two crayons (green and red-orange)
  • numerous tic-tacs
  • one purple skittle
  • …and more!

Anyway, I’m not proud of the state of my car, but when you commute and have a toddler, you kind of stop caring.  But I cleaned my car.  In effort to mask any lingering chicken nugget odor, I bought a Little Tree (Vanillaroma). 

Li'l Tree

Is it just me, or did Little Trees get wimpy over time?  I remember when they used to just have those pine-scented ones.  I used them a lot in high school (probably to cover up the scent of whatever my friends brought into my ‘81 Tercel).  I remember that if you touched the surface of one of those pine-scented trees, you would smell like pine for hours.  Cancer probably started forming under your skin from touching the tree, so powerful were the aromatic chemicals.  You could actually taste the tree if you came within twelve inches of one.

If you put a pine scented tree in your car (normally it would hang from the rear-view mirror…I didn’t have a rear-view mirror) and checked back a year later, your car would still reek of overpowering pine tree smell. 

The scent of pine was so intense that many people could not stand those Little Trees.  Someone might walk up to your passenger door, catch a glimpse of a tree somewhere near the dashboard, and say “Oh, you have a little tree.  You know, I think I’ll take a cab.  Thanks anyway.”

Fast forward to today.  When I purchase a Little Tree and hang it from my rear-view mirror (I have one now), three days later I have a hard time telling if the scent of my car is more ‘Vanillaroma’ or ‘McNugget’.  Check out the Little Tree website.  These days you can get a papaya-scented tree if you want.  There are dozens of colors and scents of Little Trees for you to choose from.  However, I would be fine with just a few scent selections if they were nearly as powerful as they were ”back in the day.”