At the Car Wash

No, get that song out of your head. It's fun, it's happenin' and stylish with a 70's sort of groove, good beat, non straight white boy rhythm, but it's not my story.

Today was supposed to be productive. The intent was to clear out some old furniture from my room at my parents' house, that was the manual labor part of the day, and it went fine. Well, the old mattress and box springs were deemed too worn out to donate to Salvation Army, lest they think we were merely using them in lieu of the dump. And the mattress was wiggly as all get out, and harder than it should have been to put in temporary storage. But, we managed to get all the large furniture pieces moved, Mom and I.

So I took a nap, while listening to a new "Songs of Almodovar" CD, because I'm overdosing on Almodovar lately (Live Flesh, Laws of Desire, The Matador, Volver, more on the way). Anyhow, light snooze followed by waking lethargy (naps: a good idea in theory, but not always well executed in reality).

Then it was off to wash Eden. Eden is my baby girl, 2005 (first year of one of the best redesigns ever in my opinion) Mustang, Redfire Metallic, for those who don't know. I love her. I feel extremely lucky to be driving the exact car, color, make, everything I wanted, and she even has a few more things that I didn't even feel the need to have, but she has 'em and it's cool. (I can change the back light colors on her gauges...I call it "Pacific Blue" right now.)

In other words I LOVE baby girl, and she usually gets a really good bath weekly. But the past weekend it rained, and I have to wait until the mud/caliche combo dries at my parents' before I wash her, otherwise it's pointless. So she went two weeks without a scrubbing, and today was catch up, with an extra good wash planned.

I drove up to the usual place, parked, locked Eden, and went to the bill changer. I inserted a couple of dollars and got the quarters in return. Then I inserted a brand new dollar bill, and the machine spit it back out, numerous times. I thought these machines loved crisp new dollars best of all, but maybe it thought "too clean, gotta be fake." Anyhow I put another, older dollar in and the changer ate it up and spit quarters at me. So I crumpled a couple of the newer dollars, flattened them again, and sure enough, the machine finally liked them. Well, mostly, it wasn't having one of them. But I thought at last I had enough quarters to thoroughly wash Eden.

So the washing went pretty well, but turns out I wanted one more "round" of rinsing. (In case it's not readily apparent, this is self washing, I don't let anyone else wash Eden, no drive throughs, mind you.) So I went back and tried the newish but crumpled a bit dollar, and the machine said "nope." So I crumpled it again, more wrinkles, and the machine said "yep, that's a real one" and yay, I got the quarters, finished with an extra good spot free rinse (almost spot free I should say) and was ready to go vacuum her interior.

But, at the place I usually wash her, the vacuum stalls are tiny. You can't open the door all the way, and I don't even think you could open it to the partial point without hitting the brick wall. And if you pull too far forward, you are in the 7-11 parking lot beside the car wash, and cars are there and you'd hem them in. Way too complicated.

So I back out, figuring I'd just head somewhere else, and it's good to drive and let the air dry Eden, and then I can spot clean when I get back home. However, as I was backing out, a small dust cloud, dust devil, something, blows right in her redfire metallic, wet, path. So I look out the passenger window and it's hazy, because as you guessed, a film of dust is covering said window, same for that entire side of the car.

Arrrrrrrrrr.

I pulled back into a washing stall, and used my vacuum quarters to rinse off this new round of instant dust. I thought it would work just to use the spot free, but as I drove off, I realized Eden's hood looked like a fiery Martian landscape, with rivulets of dusty mud all over. Grrr.

Fine, time to go somewhere that didn't have bedeviling dust devils. I went to the old place I used to wash Eden but had given up on since the various selections there rarely all work, and besides, it's more expensive, which doesn't bother me except I waste money waiting for the things to work and they don't and I swear then I'll never, ever go back there.

But I drive up, into a stall, and that bill changing machine loves my money it seems, especially loves a five dollar bill. This changer eats it readily "yummy, used five" it thinks, and spits out my change. (It does not always love my money, though).

Theory: money is like fine cheese to bill changers, better with age and if it's stinky?

I do a round of high pressure rinse, wax and then spot free rinse. All is well. Pavement is all around so dust devils be damned to your dust hell. Wait...this may be dust hell...that explains it.

Anyhow, I drove to the extra wide vacuuming berths, where I can open Eden's door all the way, and get in there with the vacuum. I drop a quarter in the slot. It gets stuck. Seems to be stuck in something that's like a pre-quarter slot, so I figure another quarter will send it down the shoot. Nope, the other quarter gets stuck. Great. I try to dislodge it with my key, in or out at this point I don't care where the quarter ends up as long as it's a credit or in my pocket, at which point the totality of this entire exercise made me think I'd better stop before my key got sucked in there or something.

I politely drive to the next stall, where that machine likes my quarters and my business, and I suck the dirt out of Eden's interior. Didn't take a lot of time or effort, only the driver's side had much debris. I finally finished my car wash adventure.

Clearly there's no song for that experience. If so you'd be annoyed with it and turn it off, you can't dance to that, it has an irregular beat and no rhythm. Beyond that, the song would have already cost about twenty bucks. That's a hefty mark up for an un-danceable single. Which reminds me of my iTunes story...