The Fifth Boofy

posted by BH

On Sunday I decided that since we've been having some nice weather in Northern California for the past three or four days, my pickup needed to be washed. It had accumulated half a winter's worth of road grime from rain, snow, and mud, and was looking really bad. There's a $2 do-it-yourself car wash place a few miles from my house that includes a nice pressure washer style hose and a brush that dispenses massive amounts of soap. Seriously, this thing makes my pickup look like Willy Wonka's car before it goes through the Wonka Wash or whatever it's called.

I arrived at the car wash, and evidently everyone else in town had decided it was a good day to wash the car. I decided to vacuum the car first and wait for a bay to open up. When one finally did, I pulled into the spot and got out of the car. The guy who had been in the spot before me had pulled straight ahead and parked at a vacuum. As I got out of my pickup, I noticed him looking at me. There was something about the way the guy looked at me that caused me a small amount of discomfort. Still, I got out my quarters and walked to the machine that takes my money. Before I put the money in, I noticed the guy looking at me again. At this moment I thought, either he really likes me, I'm not weraing any pants, or there's something wrong with this car wash. After a moment of thought, I decided to insert my $2 in quarters and start the process. The rinse went well. I had parked under a wire in Chico the day before, so I had mountains of bird crap decorating the vehicle that were quickly done away with by the hose. When I switched the machine to "SOAP," nothing happened. Usually, there's this little sound as though the machine has clicked over or changed gears or something. I thought to myself that it seemed like sometime in the past I had experienced something like this in which it took a few seconds for the soap to start coming out. This time, as seconds contnued to tick by, nothing happened. This was why the guy had been looking at me. He hadn't been able to use the soap either. As I realized what was going on, with the guy still at the vacuum, several thoughts went through my head. First, can I still clean my car at all? Second, can I walk over and kick the guys ass, and will the cop sympathize with me? Third, can I switch bays, pay more money, and continue washing my pickup? Fourth, should I yell at this asshole who could have stopped me from throwing $2 down the drain. The answers went, no, no, yes, yes. I didn't yell at the guy though. I don't know why. It would have been the only time in my life in which I would have felt and been completely justified in my negative reaction to a stranger. Instead, I pulled out, drove into another bay, and finished the wash. But now, to you Mr. Turquoise-ish Lincoln bastard, I say, fuck you, go to hell, you asshole. The only reason I don't want you to die is so that I can be in front of you somewhere, someday, find out that something doesn't work, and tell you about it. Then you'll say, "I'm such an asshole. How could I not have told that guy that the soap didn't work?"