Kathleen McCall:
Occasional�� Muse�

2001-10-25 - 1:00 p.m.

Car Wash

Drove the Colt through the carwash yesterday. This is a rare occasion, and I saved it until both of my children were out of school so they could go, too. Children of poverty, you know - the drive-through carwash is a big treat.

But I remember doing the drive-through carwash when I was a kid, too, and it WAS a treat. It's fun. You're in your own little safe cave, and all around you are these giant mechanized things going up and over and all around, and the water is hitting the windows with gale force. You could be in a hurricane, or a tornado, or anything, but you're perfectly safe. Hey, that's fun. Wanna know something? It's STILL fun. (Yeah, I'm a cheap date.)

Youngest Daughter was amazed that the carwash was free, and of course I had to explain to her that it wasn't really free and that no one in her right mind would buy gasoline at this station unless they wanted the carwash, because it's folded into the cost of the gasoline. I should have shut up. She doesn't need to know that. I should have said, "Yes, it's free! It's a FREE CARWASH!" I'm all for preserving the Age of Magic. Free carwashes, magical machines at the bank that spit out money whenever you need some, restroom sinks that know enough to turn on when you put your hands under them. The analytical view will come soon enough.

Younger Daughter also asked, "What happens if you NEVER wash your car?" That was a stumper. We had been pretty close to an answer on that one, until I decided to take the kids to the carwash. (No, not really the kids, although I did offer when we were waiting in line to bungee-cord them to the roof rack; they both declined. No sense of adventure.) What DOES happen if you never wash your car? It just gets dirty. One could say it ruins the paint job - I think that's what my father told me - but, in the context of the MomWagon, that's ludicrous. I'm sure there is a point where the car STOPS accumulating dirt, simply cannot accumulate any more, otherwise I would have been driving a giant mudball around town. I only have a four cylinder engine, and it didn't seem to drive any faster coming OUT of the carwash, so I do not think it can accumulate enough weight in dirt to effect performance. Cars do not, to my knowledge, develop impetigo or any other skin disease caused by poor hygiene. So I don't really know what happens.

Well, I do know ONE thing that happens. People look at you driving by, and they think, "Wow, will you look at that. That person is the sort of person who...who...who never washes her car." Yep - that could happen. Probably HAS happened. And they might draw conclusions about you based on that assumption, like that you have laundry on your bathroom floor and that you never get a haircut when you need one, and they'd be right, too.

But then, somebody might look at you driving by and think, "Wow - I wonder how they enjoyed the Australian Outback," or "Incredible - two years at the bottom of the lake and it still RUNS." And these would be the kind of people you might like to meet, people with some creativity and optimism. They might even be the kind of people you'd like to play Hurricane in the carwash with.

�

previous - next

�