I almost lost my teeth last Friday. Provoked by the cruel taunts of friends, I'd been considering giving my car a wash. It had been at least three (maybe seven) years since I'd last sprayed the thing. The grimy build-up, the tumble of seedy carcasses, and the paint from a thousand bird ploppings had become a badge of honor for my 13-year-old Toyota Corolla.
The decision did not come easily. I had enjoyed watching the sooty creep of my exhaust spray as it expanded along the right rear of my bumper. Diagnosed over a year ago as "burning oil", the car looked, according to one giggly colleague, "like it had been through a fire." So why wash it at all? Perhaps it comes in knowing this is my last chance to appreciate the car I have owned since before I married, and before any of my children's lives began. My wife labeled it "a junker" years before I could embrace such a moniker, but once I agreed with her on this, all bets were off and it seemed to amuse me to watch its decline.
The vinyl border around the windows started peeling, I've torn down what I could. The windshield is cracked from a stone that flew up in 2004. My front seat passenger must wait for a valet to open their door as it does not open from the inside. The driver's side door doesn't open from the outside, but now that I've pried off the inner handle, you can grip the mechanical rod through the exposed hole in the door, and pulling it toward the window, release the door. If it doesn't look like rain, I can keep my window down and reach in to open it. And probably worst of all, is the muckety-muck that covers the area between the seats, under the cuprack, and the carpets--no doubt from years of toppled soda cups and coffee splatters.
Its most recent diagnosis was a broken coolant senser (or something like that)--a device that helps the car identify the internal and external temperature. Without it, my engine thinks it's always 30 below zero. Somehow I found a way to pass my Georgia emissions exam this month, and it felt like reason to celebrate with a washing. I wholly expect this to be my car's last year with me, and as we take this victory lap together, I think she should be clean.
My children were beside themselves at the prospect of saying goodbye to the caked on material that had grown alongside them--oddly, it was a happiness that came upon them, not a trifling horror at losing something like a sibling. So I took Madison and Marshall to a coin-drop wash where we sprayed, scrubbed, and sprayed again. We worked quickly, as I didn't want to expend more quarters than necessary. But as Madison employed the foaming brush on the back bumper, I thought her not firm or fast enough with the strokes. I got behind her, trying to mime the correct scrubbing technique. Still not getting it, I reached from behind to wrest the foaming brush from her hands, but she pocked me in the teeth with the handle. My hands went to my mouth, I moaned and danced, and tickled my ivories, convinced dental surgery was in my future. I survived with only a gargantuan upper lip, and teeth that tingled oddly for a week.
The car shimmers now, as it rattles and fakes its death. A glorious target for the droppings of all God's creatures.
Forgot to mention my infamous "self-accident" in which I backed into this car with our van, wiping out my side mirror and punching a dent in the door. Never fixed those things.
Posted by: johnvano | April 29, 2011 at 05:42 PM