This afternoon, a beautiful, 72-degree sunny day in Ithaca, I took the car in for a checkup. On my way back, the thought of my car rusting away from six months of salt-covered roads made me stop at a car wash. I’ll admit that I have not gone to a car wash since I left home. That doesn’t mean I never washed our car! Anytime I thought the car needed washing (okay, okay, I mean, anytime my inner Dad voice rose to a particularly acute pitch) I washed it in our driveway. Quite frankly, I didn’t know how car washes worked, and I’m really leery of looking like an idiot in a car shop, in a car wash, or any area where I might look like the stupid girl who owns a car but doesn’t know how it works. True as it is, I’m still touchy about it. But this afternoon I was feeling particularly plucky, so I handed cash to the young kid at the car wash when he asked for it and settled in for the ride after triple-checking that my windows were up. I have to say, the time spent in a womb of soap and whirling brushes has gone down since I was a kid, and I, unlike most busy adults, don’t see it as an improvement. But even 3 minutes inside the car-wash system was fun, and made me feel one more step on my way to “real” adulthood even as I was reminded of the fun of childhood.
Erin