How Not To Wash a Car

Greetings!  For those of you unaware, when Moose Man and I moved out here with our kitties from Hawaii, we needed a place to stay while our house was built.  Landlord and his wife (heretofore known as "Landlady") were more than generous in allowing to stay with them.  She was doing her six month stint in A Land Far, Far Away, so he was lonely and didn't cook for himself.  And that's where we stepped in to help.  In October Landlord left for his six month turn in A Land Far, Far Away and we watched over their house.

I had been driving Landlady's Volkswagen Beetle (it's known as Sunny because it's bright yellow; I lovingly refer to it as "Sunny D") and decided to wash it off before Landlady returned.

As it is January in the Midwest, it's a bit chilly out.  I had no idea where to go for washing a car that was a "we'll do it for you" sort of place, so I found a "do it yourself" car wash.  I should've known things would not go well when I had to knock on the office door and disrupted the manager's Chee-To Eating Time.

"Are the bays open?"

"Yep, yep," he said, licking the orange powder off his fingers.

"All right, then.  Thanks."  For what, I wasn't sure.

By the time I circled around to pull into a bay, there was already someone in the first/most-used bay.  The next one had rocks and dirt all on the floor, which I took as a bad sign.  Bay #3 had someone in it as well, so I opted for #4, which had crap all over the ground, but not as bad as #2. 

I went to the change machine which did not accept tens or twenties.  Luckily I had a few ones and a five.  (For those of you who know me, you know I seldom have cash on me, so this was a miracle.)  $7.50 in the machine later, and I was giving Sunny D a bath.  It came time to use the soap, and that's when things got a bit messy.

It was below freezing and I guess Bay #4 hadn't been used in a while.  The soap brush started sputtering and a trickle of slightly soapy water came out.  I scrubbed Sunny as best I could, but very few bug guts were coming off.  I used all my Pixie Power to scrub off the dirt and grime that had accumulated, but I might as well have been using spit.  

I had finally had enough and realized that it was not going well.  I decided the best thing I could do was to rinse off what little soap was on the car and get home.  I grabbed the power spray and lightly rinsed off the car.  A nice wind had been blowing and it was now blowing water and soap in a fine mist all over me.  In about five minutes' time, I was soaked.

Oh.  Something else I may have forgotten to mention:  As this was a car wash and it was below freezing, there was ample ice all over the floor.  As soon as I hit the pressure trigger to wash the car, I was zooming backwards across the ice like Oksana Baiul.  After twenty minutes of my ice capades, I'd had enough.

After all this, I decided I had earned myself lunch from St. Louis Bread Co. (Panera for those of you unfamiliar with the area).  I called Moose Man and told him what had happened.  In between guffaws, he told me of a place where it's a drive-through car wash and then they wipe it down for you and do a bit of detailing.  After that, Sunny looked great.

Saturday, Landlady came home.  We met her at the airport.  As she only met us once before and that was for an hour.  We knew she liked bunnies, so Moose Man decided to wear these obnoxious bunny ears on a headband that are accented with feathers.  They look like real ears. Moose Man is tall enough that the ears were about two inches from the ceiling.  We had her over for dinner two days later.  She said the car looked great.