Carol’s mom gave us a car since she can’t drive anymore. Carol’s still driving the green Honda, and now I drive the new car, a Toyota because Carol drives a lot more than I and the Honda gets better mileage than the Toyota. It’s a 2000 Sadona. It’s not new but the closet thing to as new car I have ever driven since it only had 12000 miles on it. Because it’s new and the paint isn’t all wretched and there aren’t cigarette burns all over the interior I have decided I have to keep the thing looking new. I don’t like the pressure really. I joked that if anybody wanted a ride in my old Volvo they had to get shots first because there was no telling what was living in it. But I felt really comfortable in it and there was absolutely no upkeep pressure involved.
So I have only had this car a few months but I have taken it to this car wash place three times already. It’s just a half a mile or so away located behind what was once a non-franchise hamburger place. You drive around it and there are these big stalls with a hose hanging down from the ceiling of each. You have to make sure you have quarters because you need 10 of them to get the machine going. The little dial where you put the quarters has all sorts of settings on it like wash, rinse, and light rinse, and soap, and mop, and even wax. It’s pretty confusing, so usually I just wash with soap and rinse and that’s it.
I had thought about washing the car but then when I was driving back from working out, I drove right passed the place. Then I remembered and turned a U in the middle of the block and went back and realized I had only 2 dollar bills and started cursing, but then I felt in my pocket and I had like 10 quarters. I don’t know how that happened. So I pulled the car into the stall, and started pushing quarters into the machine. But the machine would not take the quarter. I flicked the quarter with my finger but it wouldn’t go in. Damn. I thought maybe that particular machine was broken or maybe full up with quarters.
So I pulled out of that stall and drove into the one next to it, and started putting quarters into that machine and it wouldn’t take the quarter either. Damn! Then I looked at the machine and realized I was trying to put the quarters in the wrong slot. The right slot was at the top of the machine. You put the quarter in that and gravity pulls it down, but I was trying to put quarters into the bottom slot made for bent quarters to come out. Damn! I like just sort of scratched my head and thought maybe I was too tired to be out and about. How the hell did I get the top and bottom slot confused?
Maybe I am getting aphasia like my brother Dan. He had a stroke though. As far as I know I haven’t had one of those. But my powers of identification are excessive. I was returning from one of those damn conferences once and watched the Rain Man on the flight, and by the time we landed I was damn certain I was autistic.
It was more of an adventure than I wanted it to be but I managed to wash the damn car without further mishap.
