I received an email about serendipity. I hadn’t known that corn flakes, Slinkys and chocolate chip cookies were discovered by folks who were seeking something else. I also recently learned that when Flemming returned from vacation, he found mold in a dirty petri dish. And that mold, led to the discovery of penicillin! Who knew that the stuff that as often found in my refrigerator was a key factor in the development of antibiotics?

This new knowledge has inspired me to lay down the gauntlet. Hear my challenge ye people of science! Be brave! Ask parents (who happen to own mini vans, have multiple children, and who are relaxed with respect to things like trips to the car wash), to turn over the contents of their vacuum cleaner bags to you ( post biannual cleaning ) for investigation and scientific review.

I truly believe that simple act and resulting experiments will lead to a cure for (who knows) cancer, AIDS, the whooping cough and maybe, just maybe even possibly world peace.

This thought occurred as I forced my poor vacuum cleaner to engage in some “beyond the call of duty” service one Saturday night. A few hours earlier I had used my new fancy cellphone to update my Facebook status to read, “cleaning up bodily fluids outside of the Regal Cinema.”

“What?” you ask. I promise the connection between vacuums, headaches, vehicles and world peace will be established soon. You see, I am blessed with a set of twin boys who unfortunately suffer with migraine headaches. One of my sons, Jordan started complaining about pain during the first ten minutes of a film that our family had gone to see.

Generally, as the mother of a multitude, I am prepared for the most common child related emergencies. My big purse is home to first aid kit, sewing kit, emergency food rations, extra outfits, board games, flashlights and telescopes (you know) the must haves for twenty first century mothers. However, a few weeks before the family adventure to the movies, a childless fashionable friend teased me about carrying my big leather winter purse in the midst of an August heat wave. I remembered my former self and downsized to a really cute, really small, really red straw bag.

The problem with the trade-off is that I did not have the bottle of juvenile strength Motrin that is usually always with me on the day in question.

I did however look very cute as Jordan and I left the movie theater and raced to the nearest drugstore to purchase some tablets. (Of course the husband and other three children remained inside the movie house to enjoy their popcorn and the film.) I left my baby boy prostrate and moaning in the car while I went inside the pharmacy. When I returned to the car, the vomiting had begun.

One benefit of being an environmentally sensitive 70’s flower child, was that I had an environmental friendly reusable grocery bag in my van. It provided the safety net during the eruption. My ego was in full gear while I wiped my boy down and carried the bag to a nearby trash can. Yes, I am wonderful. I’d been able to unselfishly care for my child. I’d agreed to leave a film that I had been looking forward to seeing. I gave up a chance to spend time with my husband (who is rarely around), and I had an environmentally friendly trash bag on hand. And I’d managed to still look kind of cute. Situation handled, head swollen I started driving back to the theater, with hope of catching the rest of the movie.

My emotions shifted from calm to panic when I realized that the eruption I had just handled was merely a tease, a precursor the series of voluminous flows that followed. Trying to do right by the world and others really paid off that day. The purse purge meant that I didn’t have tissues, but I did a bag of clothes that were on their way to the local charity in the trunk of the mini- van. I decided that my need at that moment was more, so I took one of the “not so cool” tee shirts and cleaned the boy up again. (Did I mention that the headache started after Jordan had eaten 1/3 of a large box of popcorn and a bag of gummy bears within the first five minutes of the coming attractions?)

Anyway, knowing that my husband has faith in my ability to handle things, I was certain that they rest of my crew would stroll out of this extraordinarily long film when it was over (and after all the credits had run). The concession to the situation would be that the post movie video game (don’t the theater owners get enough of our money with the popcorn and high ticket prices) would be forgone. Hours later and after having gone through several more tee shirts, my son was finally able to settle and to sleep. (I no longer looked so cute.)

So what you ask, does this have to do with medical cures and world peace? Well, when I was cleaning out the car, I realized that the contents of Jordan’s stomach were minor players in the world of things that exist in the back of my Mom car. (At least I could identify the gummy bears.) It was the other non-identifiable items that had germinated, sprouted, mutated and morphed while being chauffeured around by me for years that hold the solution to our nations, no the world’s, problems. The items in my vacuum cleaner bag that day were certainly more interesting than Flemmings’ old moldy bread. H1N1 take your best shot. My thirteen year old Nissan Quest has been home to five children, three geckos and 184,000 miles. Its removed contents, with the proper scientific study, will beat you any day.