Feeling decidedly unmotivated on a recent scorching-hot afternoon, I picked up my phone and began scrolling through Facebook. A horrible habit, I know, but that’s a subject for another time. A photo taken through a soapy car windshield caught my eye. STUCK IN A CAR WASH my friend Lisa had posted.
The post was from several hours earlier and had prompted several horrified comments. “My worst nightmare!” one person wrote. “I would have melted to the floor,” said another. “I’m so claustrophobic I would have totally freaked out!” a third exclaimed.
My comment was different. “Are you still stuck?” I wrote. The answer was no. So I called Lisa to get the scoop—as we say in the newspaper business—about what had happened. She and her husband, who was driving, had entered the car wash as directed by a young man working there. Their vehicle was on the conveyer belt, in neutral with the windows closed. The pre-wash cycle had finished. Suddenly, the oversized side-view mirror on the pick-up truck in front of them flew off. The driver, oblivious, kept going, exited the tunnel and drove away.
The mirror jammed the conveyer belt but not the brushes and soapy water. “We just sat there in place while our car got washed over and over and over again,” Lisa told me.
An employee hollered at them through their rolled-up window to sit tight while he stopped everything and retrieved the mirror. “I hate to say this,” he yelled, “but you’re going to have to go through again. Your car’s still covered in soap.” That was the worst part, Lisa told me, admitting that—had she been alone–she would have been in true panic mode during the repeat trip. The good news is that they got the deluxe wash for the price of the basic and nothing untoward happened the second time around.
So all’s well that ends well, as Mr. Shakespeare would say.
Lisa’s story set me to thinking about people being uncomfortable in car washes. I never have been. I’ve been aggravated, but not nervous. For years, I’ve patronized the three-dollar drive-thru car wash located on my route into town. It doesn’t do a very good job but it’s quick and cheap and convenient. But those days may be over. In the past few weeks, that car wash has kept three crisp dollar bills—stored in my console for just that purpose–not once, but twice, without ever spitting out a drop of soapy water. Six dollars down the drain. Or not down the drain, I should say.
When my kids were little, they loved going through a car wash and watching the show. But not as much as Molly and Buster, our Labrador Retrievers, loved it. The dogs got so excited when the water came rushing at them they almost certainly would have turned flips right there in the minivan had there been room.
But back to why some people are afraid. I totally understand the fear of driving off a bridge and being trapped in a car in a deep body of water. (I was plenty old enough to follow the news back in 1969 when it happened to Teddy Kennedy and Mary Jo Kopechne). And I don’t believe there’s any way I could be talked into going under the ocean in a submarine. But those situations aren’t anything like than a car wash. What’s the worst that could happen? Windows could leak and get everyone and everything inside the car wet. That would be annoying, but not scary. Escaping a car wash that won’t stop washing is possible simply by driving out or fleeing on foot. And everybody has a cell phone these days. Call for help if you’re trapped. Or put it on Facebook while it’s actually happening.
Which is exactly what Lisa did. Thanks to her post, I got this column simply by scrolling through my phone on a scorching-hot summer afternoon.
(July 13, 2024)