Why I auto . . .

It was a beautiful day Saturday. It was such a great day I grabbed my coffee and got moving. So no sofa. I caught up with that Sunday afternoon.

I decided to get my car washed. Not a very original thought as it turned out. The line into the fancy-shmancy car wash was bumper to bumper. I sat in line for about twenty minutes before I got to the machine that takes your money. Finally the yellow gate went up and I proceeded to the short line waiting to move into the tunnel of sudsy automotive shiny-ness. As I usually do, I checked my windows to make sure they were all the way up. Suddenly the back right window came back down. I hit the button, it went up and came back down. I hit the button, it went up and came back down. The cars ahead were moving toward the now threatening tunnel of doom. I hit the button, it went up and came back down. By now there were only two cars in front of me, and a mile of cars behind me. The carwash attendant came over and said, "you'll need to roll that back window up."

No kidding.

I told him the situation and he looked at me for an answer. I had none, except to hit the button. The window rolled up, and came back down. The crowd behind was getting a bit restless.

The attendant moved several orange cones, I did an eighteen point turn, and left down the wrong way lane. As quickly as I could find a place, I fiddled with the window. I couldn't fix it, but with quick staccato presses I moved the window up incrementally, micron by micron (actually micrometre by micrometre as of 1967), until it was shut. Then it came back down. But I was sure I had the formula now, so I tried again. This time it worked.

So back in line I went. Another twenty minutes later I paid my money, the yellow gate went up and I was on my way in the short line. Now to just check the windows one last time. Crap.
Fortunately I had perfected my method to the point that I could do it quickly and finished just in time to enter the maw of the carwash tunnel.

The great thing about this carwash is that when you finish getting the car washed, you can vacuum all you want for free. Fortunately I had thought ahead. Up until that morning my car had been crammed full of Vacation Bible School materials accumulated over years and years at the church. Surely someone can use this, I thought, so let's not throw it away. Let's put it in my car. Along with the boxes of grape jelly I need to deliver to the Church of the Reconciler. But I removed all that stuff before I went to the carwash.

Man that Prius looks good. Even with the VBS stuff and boxes of jelly stuffed back in it.

Anyway, I don't know why I decided to post this. Except maybe we all felt good about washing our cars this Saturday. Work weeks can be hard, and frustrating, and you wonder if anything ever gets finished.

But a clean car, now that's getting something done.

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