At the Car Wash Yeah!

I wasn’t exactly singing that tune the day I was in the middle of a car wash when everything stopped. 

And I mean stopped. No longer was my car moving along the track. The soap wasn’t squirting. The water wasn’t falling, and the large blue scrubber cloth strips weren’t moving over the hood of my car. 

It was eerily quiet. For what seemed like thirty minutes but was actually only 10, nothing happened - except my growing anxiety.

Ten minutes seems like an eternity when you are trapped in a metal box with your car on a conveyor belt and no option to drive off or exit your vehicle. What do you do? 

Not panicking is all you can do. I just sat there watching the windshield dry and hoping that the mechanics would be fixed by the capable attendants, who as it turned out, were frantically trying to get everything running again. It helped that I had company in the car - my husband, who never panics. 

Sure enough, the conveyor belt started with a jolt and soon the blue cloth strips were doing their thing and the car was on its way. 

The day after the incident, I had parked my car at work underneath a tree that dropped brown, stringy tassel things all over my car, so much so that even a swipe of the wipers and a 65-mph highway drive wouldn’t remove them. I thought about going through the car wash - the operative word being thought.

Instead, after pulling in the driveway, I got out the hose and cleaned the car myself. It might be a while before I willingly enter that metal box again to clean my car. Then again, if the alternative is cleaning it myself, I might just take my chances.