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Of all the things I don’t worry much about with my car, number one on the list is how it looks. It has its share of dings, is missing the trim pieces on the passenger side and three interior door trim panels, the glovebox lid was crudely drilled through to gain access and I don’t remember the last time I waxed it, much less vacuumed it out.

Over the weekend, I went and got a medium stuffed crust pie from my local pizza establishment – greasy food is the best hangover cure ever. On the short drive back to the house, the containment vessel was breached and an ounce or so of pizza juice was leaked onto the passenger seat. Last night, I got around to cleaning it up with the extraction cleaner The Girl gave me for Christmas a few years ago. After getting rid of that spot, I went ahead and cleaned the rest of the passenger seat cushion for shits and grins. I was absolutely horrified by the putrid effluvent it was removing from the upholstery – the waste tank of the machine (a Bissell Little Green Deep Cleaner, if you must know) was slowly filling with a dark brown fluid.

Equally intrigued and disgusted, I cleaned the entire back seat cushion while I was at it. This proved even dirtier than the passenger seat. I continued spraying, scrubbing and extracting until the tank was full and took the machine inside. Holy crap was my car dirty. I poured out some of the goo into a beaker – it was completely opaque.

Gross. If you’ve been in my car in the past, say, six years – I’m sorry for being such a dirty bastard. When it warms up in the spring, the entire interior is getting this treatment. I’m already scared of what the floorboards will bring up (much less the driver’s seat). If you have a car and cloth seats, I highly recommend you beg, borrow or buy one of these machines and really clean the upholstery once in a while.