AT THE CAR WASH
I wish I could run myself through a car wash.
Car washes fascinated me as a child. It was magical — all that whirring machinery and alternate bursts of water and soap. I dreamed of being in our convertible as it journeyed through the car wash. I too would get “so clean, it hurts your eyes.”
Being washed, dried and ready to go in less than five minutes would be great! Car-wash soap is the industrial kind, so probably a bit harsh on human skin. But I would choose a “Basic” wash and dispense with the soap cycle altogether. There would need to be an automatic dryer though. No one is going to hand-dry me with a rough, dirty towel.
The automatic car-washes, those without any attendants, seldom work out for me. Take this past weekend. I pull up to “Soap n’ Suds” establishment and park next to the vacuum kiosk. I always clean my car interior first. And it really needs it. The floor mats lie stiff with accumulated dust and rocks. You’d think I spent weeks in a gravel pit. And crumbs sprinkle my back seat like I had a four-year-old back there eating animal crackers.
First I have to untangle the vacuum hose, which is kinkier than the guy who wanted to drink out of my shoe. The long hose reaches the other side of my car without a lot of gymnastics. But it’s big and clumsy to use. I feel like I’m enveloped in the coils of an Anaconda. I have to continually stop to extricate myself.
It’s a dollar-fifty for just four minutes of vacuum time. And that sucks! It’s barely enough time to clean one floor mat. I feed the vacuum quarters like it’s a slot machine. You’d expect good results for all that money (three bucks) — but no. The suction is so feeble, I probably stand a better chance using a lint brush.
I give up in disgust, replace my still-dirty mats in the car and drive twenty feet to the washing bay. They have self-serve ones in addition to the one automatic bay. Last time, I tried a self-serve one, but I just couldn’t figure out how to use it. I ran through all three cycles worth of money in the first wash cycle. In retrospect, I think I spent too much time scrubbing the encrusted bird-poo off my roof.
So I head for the automatic car-wash bay, which is currently empty. I stop at the payment kiosk and choose my wash package. I push the button for the “Deluxe” wash and insert my ten-dollar bill. But the machine promptly spits the bill out.
Noting the creases in the bill, I take care to smooth these out before reinserting it. Once again, the machine angrily regurgitates my money. I rummage through my wallet and come up with a five-dollar bill and five ones. Painstakingly, I insert each of these, one by one. The machine, painstakingly, spits each and every one of them back out.
By this time, there’s a line of cars queued up behind me. I can sense the mood is getting ugly. So I fish out my credit card and insert that into the machine. There’s a blinking message. I have to shade my eyes from the sun to read it. It says, “Card read error. Transaction terminated.”
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