July 11, 2008

Hey... It was a Good Idea


Most recent escapade...driving through Kansas, again.

*Sigh.
Why does it have to be right in between Arkansas and Colorado? Why couldn't they put it inside Texas, since that state is soooo big and soooo great?

Rule of life: Don't trust a state with no roadkill dotting the highways.
It has to mean something. Something must be very wrong if there are absolutely no furred or feathered remains.

Heading out from Arkansas at around 10:45pm, I launched off into the great sub-Ozarkian disheveled horizons of Oklahoma, another state in the way of Colorado from Arkansas.
I'm not bitter. Not even a teeny-weenie bit in my left toenail.

A blurred and characteristically eventful five hours of car problems and unscheduled stops in epithet-inducing out of the way locations, I arrived at a gas station.

This was a gas station that deserved my respect.
Here's why.
The windshield washer squeegee in that square bucket on the side of the pump…remember those? Yeah. This one had soap in it.

No, you're wrong. Most of them don't have soap in them. Only water, providing an unpleasant experience for the bug-splattered vehicle driver.

I was so excited I jumped up and down, wriggling in uncontainable ecstasy. Woohoo! My windshield might possibly get clean!
As a matter of fact, my excitement took the physical form of tingling warmth running pleasantly down my right leg, the puppy in me coming out.
What? You can do anything when all your belongings are in the car and you're alone.

Finishing up the windshield, I looked at my hood. It was kinda a lot dirty. Like…disgusting enough that I would make my pet fly “Doobie” wear shoes if he wanted to walk on it.
So I squeegeed the hood of my car. Ewww. Look at that front bumper. Corpses all over it.

Yup. Squeegeed that too.
While squeegeeing the front, I happened to glance at my front right quarter panel. Well, maybe if I...*squeak squeak sploosh (dunking the squeegee again) squeak squeak*
That looks a lot better. Only now the door looks really dirty. Oh, and the driver’s side window could use a good squeegeeing.

You’re not a moron. You understand exactly what happened next.
I squeegeed my entire car, right there at the gas pump.

Walking inside to grab a nice cold bottle of caffeine to keep me awake, I laid my assorted quarters and denarii on a cigarette ad smothered counter. The old dude behind the counter looked at me and said with a smile,

“I’m really impressed. I’ve never seen that before, and it worked pretty well.”

”What?”

He cocked his head sideways and smiled at me kinda funny.
“You washed your whole car with that windshield washer.”

I was so embarrassed; he’d watched me the whole time. So I said the only thing I could.

“You're only supposed to use it on windshields?”




© 2007, JPE


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