Car wash is a ritual gone dry

Lorraine Sommerfeld

SPECIAL TO THE STAR

If you're reading this column on newsprint, it was delivered by an adult. It didn't use to be that way – I'll bet you probably had a paper route yourself at some point. It was one of the only ways a kid could earn money, and then most papers switched to dawn deliveries and the paper boy was unceremoniously replaced by a car creeping down your street while most are asleep, a figure darting up and down the driveways under cover of darkness.

Another surefire way to make a few bucks was to wash the car. I know we can't do that any more for environmental reasons, but I can't help but think that my kids are missing out on a rite of passage that's indelibly inked in my mind.

If my sister and I were looking for serious money, we'd have to vacuum the car first. We'd wrestle the Filter Queen down the front steps, tuck the cord through the mail slot in the screen door, making a tripwire through the living room. With my mother wincing as stones and gravel rattled down the hose, one of us would vacuum while the other scrubbed the mats on the lawn.

As the sun climbed in the unrelenting heat, my dad would back the station wagon under the tree, hook up the hose, fill a bucket with warm water and a squeeze of dishwashing soap. My sister and I would happily work away for ages – if you've ever seen two little kids wash a car, it's like watching them decorate a Christmas tree. About halfway up, all the action stops.

Dad would bark at us to do the wheel wells last, and at some point one of us would be lifted onto the hood to get a better reach. We were only allowed to turn the hose on to rinse after we'd scrubbed – we'd run back and forth through the flower bed with bare feet, leaving little muddy footprints around the car.

Dad would inspect. He would find spots we'd missed. We would fix them. He would overlook smudges on the glass, because we were tired and he knew it. Finally, he would hand each of us a two dollar bill, and we would believe we were rich.

Dad didn't invest in fancy car wash stuff; he drove his cars through the forest at the cottage on roads that hadn't been built yet. If a car was new, he'd haul out a bottle of Turtle Wax he'd had forever, and instruct us on how to wax the car.

I watched game shows where a lifetime supply of Turtle Wax was awarded, and was in wonder at how cheap it was. We had the same bottle for 11 years, and it was half full. It's probably still in the garage, come to think of it.

Dad was insistent that we do the wax-on, wax-off thing, section by section. It was boring, but the money was good.

One time, my sister and I decided to surprise him by waxing the car when he wasn't home.

We covered the whole thing, then spent hours desperately trying to chip it off. Sometimes Dad did know best.

My son, Christopher, now 17, always loved going through the car wash when he was little. I learned the hard way about 3-year-olds and power windows. A car wash is easier, I'll give it that. Push a few buttons, pay a few bucks, presto.

End of an era.

Lorraine Sommerfeld appears Thursday on Wheels.ca.

www.lorraineonline.ca

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