January 20, 2020

A few posts back I was talking about how fast January was going. But here it is, only January 20th which means I have 11 more days to go which means 11 more posts to make just to get through January! 😳 I hope I can come up with enough blather for 11 more posts. Because, if you recall, I so stupidly made that New Year's resolution to post everyday. And I probably shouldn't remind you, but my resolution was to post EVERYDAY, as in 366 days of 2020. Yes, stupid me decides to try to post everyday in a leap year. Gah, I am having trouble getting through January...

I live in a medium sized town but there isn't a lot going on here. Not much to do in this particular town unless you like car washes and storage units. The city puts out this newsletter called "Titusville Talking Points". It's supposed to keep everyone informed about all the new businesses that are coming to town, how far along the building process is and when to expect the grand opening. They put this newletter out every quarter. And I kid you not (well maybe I exaggerate --- I had to look up how to spell that by the way) .

Anywho, I kid you not (with some slight exaggeration), but every single quarter it seems they are bragging about another new car wash that has been built. I mean there should not be a dirty car in this whole town with all the car washes we have. I still wash my own car though. I don't trust those car washes for a lot of reasons.

First of all, they steal your money. They give you all these options, like Basic car wash, Car wash plus wax, Super Duper Deeeeeeeluxe car wash.

Well I use to use the car wash right next to the Lowes store here. I mean once I got over my fear of not being able to drive between those two guide bars or whatever ya call them. The first time I went in one, I drove too far and some loud alarm thingy goes off and scares the crap out of me. And there is this blinking sign that it took me a minute to see because I was so scared from the loud noise, thinking I had run over some attendant or something. 😁 The lighted sign says "back up". OH, they want me to back up and run over the guy again???? 😨 But of course, it was just telling me I had gone too far. So anyway, I mastered the art of driving to just the right spot to keep from setting off the alarm. Since I was used to that car wash, that is the one I used .

But the day came when it started stealing my money. I always chose Super Duper Deeeeeeeluxe car wash (That's the one where they use all those multi-colored foams on your car and rinse it three time and put more colored foam and rinse it, then put this other stuff on and then blow dries your car. It's really super duper deeeeluxe.)

It did a great job, till one day it didn't. I chose that option, and all it did was wash and rinse my car. No super duper anything. Just basic.

Well I chalked that up to maybe this is a one time glitch. But the next two times I went it did the same thing. And you know, there is never an attendant around when something like that happens. I think they know when it is not working so they go behind the old warehouse and smoke pot or something and laugh at people who pay for Super Duper Deeeeeeeeluxe and get Basic. So I quit going there. That was back in the day before we had 46 car washes in town.

There was another car wash at the Exxon station. If you bought a certain amount of gas, you got a free car wash. So one day I was with my then teenage daughter. She is now 28 so this was years ago. I got some gas, and they gave me a code to get a free car wash. I punch in the code and pull my car up and it starts squirting all these different colored foams on to my car. I thought "hmmm, this is cool, I am getting the Super Duper Deeeeeeeluxe car wash for free. So there I sit, with multi-colored foam all over my car waiting for phase two. But.....no phase two. The car wash chose that moment to break down. I look at my daughter , she looks at me, and I said "I think it broke down". She is like "what are we gonna do?" I said, "well, maybe they have a water hose here". But NO, no water hose. Nothing, nada.

I told her we would just have to drive home with the foam all over our car. She is like "MOMMMM, that will be embarrassing! I'm like "Well I don't know what else to do" and I take off down the street, heading toward my house which was about 2 miles away. Now remember, she is a teenager, she is embarrassed as heck, and she slinks down in her seat so no one can see her. I mean God forbid one of her friends sees her riding with her mom in a car covered in multi-colored foam. I just start laughing and I tell her we are almost home. No one is paying any attention to us and you aren't going to see any of your friends and even if you do, there is foam covering the windows. (I did use the wipers to clear the windshield of course).

So here I am laughing and she is slunk down in the seat and she says "Mom, this looks like we got sprayed by a sperm whale!! This is so embarrassing ) She always came up with silly things like that . Well that did it. I start laughing so hard I can barely see to drive. We made it home and my neighbor is out in his driveway and he starts laughing. He asked me what happened. My daughter gets out of the car and won't even look at him. I just start laughing again and tell him "it was a giant sperm whale" .

So yeah, I don't use any of these car washes in town. But someone must, because they keep on building them.

I had a bunch of other things to say, but this is long and people don't read long posts so

Goodnight and much love,

Lia