Suds and Thrills

The first car wash in the US appeared in 1946 when Hanna Enterprises made it big with 32 car washes. No kidding! Last weekend, Tarun and I took our car to an automatic wash near our house. Whenever we wait in this line, we look at each other with the naughty thought that we should have brought Hershey to the car wash, at least once. She was incredibly skittish and her reaction would have been priceless. Of course, we never did that because the right brain always overpowered the wrong brain in a timely manner.

With trepidation we rolled in

Inching towards the brush

Our car stuck on a belt

Moving gently with no rush

First came the soapy spray

Then the raucous whirr

I looked through the window

To find a perfect blur

Long ribbons swung at us

With loud and rhythmic thud

They came like a beast

Along with bubbling sud

Like morning in the rain

Light shone through the mist

In the distance we saw daybreak

As the ribbons did untwist

As we neared the end

Water droplets blew away

I could tell the car smiled

When we rolled off the bay

The sad realization is that unless the car wash reclaimed and detoxed the water after our visit, we contributed to the freshwater run off, this time with toxins from our car :(