Another Day in Paradise

All I wanted was to get my car washed. It wasn’t like I was looking for a thorough detailing, just a small attempt at removing the bug carcasses from my windshield and the brake dust on my front tires. Apparently, I was still asking too much, on a day that seemed destined for badness from when I awoke. We all have those kinds of days, when the culmination of little bad things results in a catastrophically horrible day. Each incident on its own might be a minor annoyance, but when they all gang up together against you, they are enough to make you go crying for Mommy, or, if your mama ain’t the nurturing type,  then  just crying and shaking like a chihuahua. I refer to those types of days as “Planes, Trains, and Automobiles” days.

I hated that movie. The combination of Steve Martin and John Candy in a series of funny mishaps while trying to get home in time for Thanksgiving should have been hysterical; instead, it reminded me of why I hate to travel. I didn’t even care if it had a happy ending, I just wanted it to end.  I needed a Xanax to undo the anxiety that movie created.

Every once in a while, a day will come along that is just like that movie. Last Saturday was one of those days for me. We had just returned home from a quick Thanksgiving trip the day before, and I knew I had a butt load of laundry awaiting me, as well as a bored teenager and needy tween to look after. My husband was going to his big college rivalry game, which began in the evening and thus warranted his leaving at ten in the morning for a full day of tailgating.

Being the loving wife I am, I decided to bake cookies for him to take to the game, so I was up and in the kitchen by eight. I decided on a batch of mint chocolate chocolate chip cookies from scratch. I mixed them up, noticed the odd consistency, and scooped them on the pans and into the ovens. About halfway through baking them, I remembered I forgot to add baking soda. I fucked up the whole batch of cookies.  I was furious with myself, so I decided to make a second batch, this time chocolate chip cookies with little bits of Andes mints in them.This time I remembered the baking soda, but not the baking powder. Batch two also was a disaster. He graciously thanked me and took all the cookies with him to the game so I didn’t have to look at my failures anymore.

After a morning of doing everything my kids asked me to do, I dropped one of them off at a friend’s house and took the other out to lunch and a Target run. My plan was to stop by one of those drive-through car washes afterwards before we came home, and lucky for me, there was one right across the street from Target. My car was filthy. It needed a bath. If you scraped the brake dust off my front wheels, you could mold it into a new brake. 

After our lunch and errands, my daughter and I crossed the street to go to the car wash, were a number of people were in the front taking advantage of the free vacuum. I needed to do that as well, but I just wanted to see my shiny wheels again. I drove around back to where the car wash entrance was, and found it blocked by orange road cones.

“F f f f…great,” I edited. “Why is it closed? It’s not like it’s thirty-two degrees out here.

“Let’s just go home,” E, my daughter, said.

“I’ll try that other car wash on the way home, at the gas station on the corner.”

We stopped at the gas station. I pulled around to the back where the car wash was, next to the machine where you put in the money. The coin and bill slots were taped over.

“ Godd…dang nab it! This one’s broken!” I have been trying to not swear in front of my child.

“Let’s just go home,” E said again.

“No, I want to wash my car. We’ll try one more place, by the other gas station.”

I drove past our neighborhood to the convenience store on another road, which has one of those self car washes next door. It has two of the automatic drive through kinds, and the rest are the kind where you actually get out of the car and hose it off yourself. I pulled up to one of the automatic bays which had a video screen to help you with the very difficult process of selecting a car wash type and inserting your money. I wanted the nine dollar wash, the one with the tire cleaner, but I only had seven crumpled one dollar bills. I dug in the bottom of my purse and found two dollars’ worth of quarters. Score!

I stuck in a dollar, then another. The third one the machine didn’t care for, but instead of spitting it back out at me, it just sat there making a whirring noise. I yanked on the edge of the bill and finally got it back out, then tried another bill. This one was faded and had sticky residue all over it. Where did I get these stripper singles, anyway? You never know who the last people are before you at the grocery store or what they've been doing with their money. I attempted a few more singles, but the machine only accepted a total of five dollars’ worth before I gave up.

“Frig, it won’t take my money.”

“Try that one again,” my daughter suggested.

In the act of shoving my money in the machine, I dropped a couple of ones next to my car.

“Crud. Will you run around the car and get that please?” I said to E.

She scampered around the car and picked them up.

“Here, Mom, you dropped them in a puddle.” She handed them to me through the window.

“Lovely, now the machine definitely won’t take them. I’ll try the quarters.” I stuffed the wet ones in the bottom of my purse, under the collection of receipts.

I stuck a quarter into the coin slot. It popped back out. I stuck it in again. It popped out. I tried four more times, with the same result. Why would I expect any different?

“Fine, I’ll just get the cheaper wash,” I said.

I pressed the button to go back to the car wash choices. The screen showed a message, “Please wait.”

We waited. Nothing happened. We waited for five minutes. Nothing happened.

“Goddamn it fucking pig fucker!” I screamed.

“Mom! “E yelled at me.

“All I wanted was a fucking car wash. Why is every fucking thing so goddamned difficult??”

I put the car in reverse and drove over to the convenience store, parked the car, and stormed inside. E trailed behind me, looking for a hole in the ground that might swallow her.

“Is that car wash next door belong to you?” I asked the eleven year old behind the counter.

“Yeah,” he said.

“Well, it just ate all my money. Then it froze.” I said.

“How much?” he asked.

“I guess five dollars.”

“She dropped the other ones in a puddle,” E volunteered behind me.

“He doesn’t need to know that,” I said to her but at him.

“Here," he said, handing me a five dollar bill. “Here’s your money back. And here’s a code for a free nine dollar car wash.” He handed me a slip of paper.

“Really? Thanks,” I said, softening. “Now I don’t have to go home and cry.”

We got back in the car and drove back to the car wash. I picked the other automatic bay, entered the code, and got the car wash I had wanted so desperately all afternoon. It took longer to try to get my car washed than it took the machine to actually wash it, but it did make a lovely striped pattern on my windows with the soap.

Alas, my tires are still dirty. I didn’t go home to cry, but I did have to take a nap. That not cussing thing was exhausting.