This past Saturday, I was standing out in my driveway getting ready to leisurely scrub my truck from top to bottom when my daughter suddenly wheeled her car up behind mine and slammed on the brakes.
“Can’t you please pull into the driveway a little bit slower?” I asked her as politely as I could as she climbed out from behind her steering wheel. “Don’t you know your front tires are going to get all out of alignment if you keep slamming them into the curb like that?”
“So, what are you up to, Dad?” she asked, ignoring my question.
“I’m obviously washing my truck.”
“But why?” she asked.
“Because it’s dirty.”
“Doesn’t look dirty to me.”
“Are you kidding? It’s filthy!”
“It is not.”
“It is so.”
“Well, even if it is it’s just going to get dirty all over again the minute you back it out of the driveway.”
“But that’s not the point,” I said.
“Then what is the point?” she asked with genuine interest.
“The point is quite simple,” I tried to explain. “My truck is filthy, and it needs to be washed. If I don’t do it now, it’s just going to get dirtier and dirtier. And unlike you, I don’t wait to wash my car until someone has to write “Please wash me” on it with their finger.”
“But don’t you realize how anal that is, Dad – to always have to be washing your car? Nope, I think my approach to car washing is much more healthy than yours.”
“And what approach is that?” I asked with interest.
“I simply wait for rain.”
“But it’s only July! It’s not going to rain for two more months.”
And then she proudly glanced over at the dirtiest motor vehicle in town and said, “Well, it looks just fine to me.”
“But how can you say that? It’s still covered with the same bird crap that’s been on there for months. Do you know the kind of damage that does to your paint job?”
As my daughter and I continued to exchange verbal punches, I found myself wondering just what it is that prevents so many women from experiencing that great inner calm (I think it’s a form of bliss, actually) which comes over most men when they know for certain they are driving around in a truly clean vehicle? And why is it that even those women who do take care of their cars prefer to have them washed at one of those trendy professional places, where uncaring minimum wage workers charge a small fortune to keep unsuspecting customers from ever discovering the real joys of car washing? Or worse yet, one of those awful, automated places where modern technology and speed take every ounce of fun out of properly bathing one’s own vehicle.
“Dad,” said my daughter, shaking my arm, “you’re not listening to me.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, wondering if women will ever understand that cars actually run better after they’ve been washed. “So, what did you say?”
“I said if you’re going to insist on standing out here and washing a perfectly clean truck, you might as well go ahead and wash my car too – if you want.”
“Hey, I know what,” I said eagerly, “why don’t you grab a towel out of the garage, and we’ll wash our cars together. How’s that? We’ll have ourselves some of that quality father/daughter time. It’ll be fun! I’ll even show you how it’s done.”
“You mean there’s actually a technique involved?” she asked with a smile.
“Of course, there is,” I said stepping over to my daughter’s car with her. “To begin with, you don’t want the water to be too hot and you don’t want to leave the soap on too long – especially on a hot day like this. And you always want to start with the roof and work your way down.”
“But why do I have to start at the roof? Can’t I just begin at the bottom if I want?”
Before I could explain to my daughter that washing a car from the bottom up was completely out of the question, I made the mistake of glancing through the driver’s window and into the interior of her car. “Oh, my God!” I shouted in horror.
“What the matter now?” asked my daughter with alarm.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything quite like it in my whole life!” I finally managed to say, still not believing my eyes.
“What are you talking about?”
“The inside of your car!” I explained, as I took a deep breath and bravely bent at the waist to get even a closer look.
There was garbage and assorted junk scattered absolutely everywhere, including empty Diet Coke and Dr. Pepper cans, Burger King and McDonald’s cheeseburger wrappers, dozens of wadded up Kleenex tissues, old lipstick and eye mascara containers, used straws, discarded pens and pencils, books and old college exam papers yellowed by the sun, paper clips, coins of every size and denomination, gym socks in need of a good wash, and even a couple of combs big enough that they could probably be used to successfully fight off a car hijacker.
“So just what is so wrong with the inside of my car?” my daughter demanded to know.
“Well, to begin with”, I said, “It looks like a homeless person has been living in there.”
“It does not.”
“Carrie”, I pleaded from my hopelessly male point of view. “You’ve just got to learn how to properly take care of your car.”
“The inside of a car is a sacred place. It’s a person’s home away from home. It’s where you listen to great music, think profound thoughts, make love for the first time, have long conversations with yourself, and hide from all the problems of the real world. You have to keep it clean – even cleaner than the outside of your car.”
“Well,”, said my daughter, “If you ask me the inside of my car looks just fine.”
“No, no, no it doesn’t!” I explained. “It looks like the inside of a giant purse!”
“So, what are you saying? That I’m a slob?”
“Yes!”
“Well, you’re the one who raised me, plus now I have to go through the entire rest of my life knowing that my father had sex in a car.”
“At least it was a clean car!”