Washing my car :-(

Categories: uncategorized

Date: 05 December 2002 09:50:00

Well, that was a fun hour.

Oh, sorry, NOT!!!!

It should have been so simple. But as I haven't washed the car for months, (that's right, MONTHS) it was a serious undertaking.

I know - why not just go to one of those wonderful places where they do it all for you, and wave you on your way with a cheery smile!

Well, I can't use those places because of the headlight...

which has to be covered and treated with delicacy throughout the cleaning process.

Why cover the headlight? I hear you ask. Well, that would be because the glass got broken by a stone on the road, and I haven't had time to get it fixed. So there I am, holding the bonnet up with one hand, and trying to hold a plastic bag over the light with the other, then attempting to let the lid drop, missing my hand, yet catching the plastic. Not easy. And every time I getit wrong, I haveto go back inside the car to release the bonnet again.

But finally, it works. I am SO ingenious! Now for the actual washing.

Inside to fill bucket with hot water. And plenty of soap seemed like a good idea. I have a white car, and it is seriously dirty. So dirty that people no longer write 'Also available in white' on it, because it's just not funny any more. So lots of soap.

Then outside, and throw soap filled sponge around over car. Roof filthy. I park under trees, so my car gets sap in the summer, leaves in the autumn, and general grime in the winter. Right now, it has been waiting for a wash so long that the dirt of three seasons is laughing at me triumphantly, and compost is growing in the corners. But I am not disheartened. (Actually I am, but that sounds so wimpy)

To make things worse, my car is white. Or was once. Now if you have a black car, people say sympathetic things like 'Black is such a difficult colour to keep clean.' RUBBISH! WHITE is a difficult colour to keep clean. DIRT is black. I can DO black! But do I get sympathy? No. I just get looks. I get looks that say - 'there she is , lucky enough to have a car, but can she be bothered to clean it?' And 'she's got two sons, you'd think she could get one of them to do it.' PLEASE! Have they ever met a teenager?

But now - now I am cleaning it. But it is laughing at me. As fast as I clean one bit, another bit throws dirt back onto it. And the wind thinks it hilarious to blow rubbish and dust around. But I keep on. The top is fine once I've got the sap etc off, but the bottom half is sticky black yucky stuff off the road, and refuses to move when asked.

Eventually I decide enough is enough, and go back into the house to get water to rinse the soap off. Think there must be a hole in the bucket. It takes so long to fill, but empties so quickly. But no, feels far too heavy to have hole in it.

After third bucket of clean water, realise that lots of soap was maybe not such a good idea.

Pray for rain, that it might wash away the soap.

No rain.

Well - OF COURSE NOT - rain will only be provided, in liberal quantities, when I hang my washing out later!

Eventually decide that I have done as much as I can. Most of the soap gone, and what is left will prove that I have washed the car. Car now clean enough to make people think that it is only weeks rather than months since washed.

Vow to wash car regularly in future. Maybe on Sunday afternoon. After all, that is what reasonable, domesticated, organised people do, isn't it?

Ah, that would be why I can't manage it then.

Unreasonable, undomesticated, and totally disorganised. That's me!

Must get car light fixed.

And service thousands of miles overdue.

Aaaagh

But at least is clean. Sort of.

Can drive and pretend all else is well.

All this and only 10:45. What an exciting life I lead.