AT THE CAR WASH

Living in bum-fuck no where can provide a fair amount of challenges.  You rely on tank water… you have to have gas bottles because you’re not hooked up to natural gas… you have to have a wood heater (because electricity is so fucken expensive you would have to re-mortgage your house to fucken heat it… bit that’s a rant for another day).. your power can be unreliable (when you pay so much, at least it could fucken work…) and the flies in summer are out of control.  Then there are the snakes, mice, rats and kangaroos that you play chicken with as you drive home.

Apart from that, there are the dirt roads to contend with.  I’m pretty lucky, because I only have 5.5 kms of dirt roads to deal with, and they’re in pretty good nick.  Plus my driveway, which is 600 meters long.  Not a lot of dirt really, in comparison to some people.

However, after a little while of traversing this dirt, my spunky little i30 tends to get a bit putrid, and when I can no longer clearly see out of the windows, it’s time to visit the car wash.

No, I don’t wash my car myself.  Who am I kidding? Two things stop me from doing it myself: 

One: I am shit at washing cars.  I use too much soap, and my car looks like a giant marshmallow.  Then I run out of coins before I can wash it off.  Then I have to cash more notes, and it ends up costing like $30.  Somehow, I end up wetter than the car, and look like I should be in a wet t-shirt comp (which I would naturally win) and when I get home, I realise that even after I’ve used 200 litres of friggin soap, a bazillion dollars in coins, I’ve missed half the car, and it’s still dirty. 

Two: I can’t be fucked. 

So yesterday, I decided whilst it was on the way down to Ivanhoe to visit my gorgeous friend Helena, I would call into Magic Hands Car Wash at Airport West to give my baby her monthly bath.

I love Magic Hands.  I really do.  There are like 20 guys that hit your car like a fat kid hits a buffet, and when they wash it, not only do they clean ALL of it, but I rediscover that my car is actually a really pretty, sparkly blue, my tires are nice and black and shiny, and I can see out of the windows.  It still costs me $35, but my car is clean and sparkly, and I’m fucken dry.

To take you back a step, and possibly to the main reason for me washing the car, is that I had a slight tragedy in it.   You see, living on the farm, we have chickens.  I sell eggs (bum nuts) to one of my bosses at work.  On the way to work, whilst cruising beautifully along the Western Ring Road (yeah… miracle, I know), I was forced to slam on the breaks because some p-plated cockhead was weaving in and out of the traffic, and decided it was a gem of an idea to cut in front of the truck that was a couple of cars ahead of me.

Thankfully, the i30 brakes (and my lightening reflexes that are akin to superpowers) avoided a panel beaters dream come true.  However, the bum nuts weren’t so lucky.

Not only did they go flying off the passenger seat and into the floor, they had my three tonne handbag slam onto the top of them as well.  Amazingly, I only had one fatality. 

Picture this if you will.  Me driving along the Western Ring Road, Altona bound, in my putrid i30, at 80 kms an hour (yes, sometimes I actually get up to that speed), cursing the fuckwit p-plater, whilst leaning across to the passenger side trying to grab the bum nuts, because they were rolling around on the floor banging into each other.  I’ve already had one distribute its protein filled goodness all over my floor mat, I didn’t need eleven more doing it too.

So, egg-grabbing, stunt driving aside, the main reason for the car wash visit, was the threat that my egg soaked floor mat offered.  All I can say is thank fuck it wasn’t summer.

So, into Magic Hands I go, with my egg laden car with windows that blocked out the sun.

I smile to myself as some dude, whom I correctly assumed was named Mohammad, barked ‘what wash you want?’  I politely told him the ‘inside out $35 wash please’.  Then I told him that I needed him to do something special for me.  As I took him around to the passenger side of the car, I wondered momentarily, if HE was wondering if he was going to have to clean up spew. 

I pointed to the egg and explained that I felt that floor mat would need a steam clean.  He wrinkled his nose, keyed something into his phone/device thingy, and said ‘this need steam clean.’

I’m like ‘No shit, champ.  I wouldn’t have thought of that.  How much extra?’

He looked blankly at me for a moment, like I was speaking a foreign language.  Oh… wait….  Anyway, he said ‘$10. You want dash board done?’

‘No! We dust dash board. Your dash board dirty.  Need clean.  Extra $10.’

‘Fucken what? Last time I was here, I paid $35, and you cleaned my dash board for me.’

‘No. Would not have happen.  Look at price.’ So he points at he prices, and to ‘clean’ my dash board, it was an extra $10.  You’ve gotta be fucken kidding me.

‘Well,’ I sighed.  ‘You did clean my dash last time as a part of it.  You saying that is not true is calling me a liar, and I don’t’ appreciate it, champ.’

‘We no clean dash board.  Would have dusted.  Maybe your dash not so dirty.’

‘Dude, my car was even more feral last time I bought it in.  You cleaned my dash’.

‘No. Not possible.  What wash you want?’

For fucks sake. ‘You know what? $35 plus the $10 for the mat.  Do what you have to fucken do mate, and I’ll be back in an hour.’ and started to walk away.  ‘And, I expect my dash board to be clean.’  I don’t think Mohammad was loving my awesomeness at that moment in time.

So, I did my grocery shopping whilst I was waiting for the Mo-Man and his buddies to do my car.  I battled the nutters at Aldi, and all the supermarket security at Coles (will explain THAT one in a later rant), then pushed my mega heavy trolley from one end of the shopping centre to the other, which I swear to God is uphill, and for what felt like 10 miles across the car park to Magic Hands.  By the time I got there, I had so much sand I my pants, I was ready to kill.  Look out Mo-Man.

So, not only did Mohammad have to show me where my car was (because it was so clean I didn’t recognise it), when he showed me the egg free floor mat, I shot a quick glance at the dash; ready for battle.

Fuck me; the dash was clean.  I was spewing.  Took all of the wind out of my sails, as I was gagging for a scream at someone.

On the flip side, Mo-Man had either seen the light, or his buddies took sympathy on my dusty dash, and just fucken cleaned it like they should have.

Fuck you Mohammad.  And your little phone/thingy.

Peace out.