The Co-Op's Touchless Car Wash

I don't know if you're familiar with the touchless car wash. Well, its a drive through car wash where this big water gun/wand thing moves around your car and washes it without actually touching the car. This is to solve the problems of former mechanized car washes with fabric picking up rocks from one car and scraping them along the side of other cars. This is also to stop much older brothers (not mentioning any names, Derrick) from telling their tiny, overimaginative siblings that the long fabric things are actually tentacles and are trying to get into the car and eat any small girls they might come across.

Well, the Co-Op gas station in town has a touchless car wash. I think it must be the only one in about 30 min. drive, because its very popular. No matter when you go to get your car washed, you can be assured that there will be at least 2 - 3 cars ahead of you. Since the car wash takes about 10 min, this means you will wait about 30 min. to get your car washed.

Today, Andrew and I went to get the car washed. My husband suggested it as a fun activity that my toddler might enjoy. He thought he might like the big machines. So, off we went to line up in the car wash, armed only with a bag of chips (Andrew's latest thing is to get the "whole bag" of whatever we have, so any packaging with a few remnants of food is grand entertainment in his mind). And we sat in line. And sat. And ate the chips. And dumped the bag on the floor. And sat some more. And sang that old car wash song. And since Andrew liked the part where the song goes "OOOH!", we sang "oooh" back and forth to each other.

Finally, we got in the car wash. My son was afraid of the touchless car wash machine. "Too loud. Too loud." Apparently it exceeds his safe decibel tolerance level. So much for attempted fun toddler activity number 58. Failed again. I should have let him play with the legs off the baby swing again.

This got me thinking. I waited for a "convenient" car wash for 30 min. I could have poured a bucket of water, soaped my car down, and sprayed it with a hose in the amount of time it took me to sit in line for the car wash. I am such a North American.