“Car Wash”
I am not always good at recognizing when MK has a good idea.
After 43 years of living with each other, I am well aware that we have somewhat different “perspectives” on how to spend our money, time, and energy. Occasionally, I have even been known to be wrong.
A couple of years ago, the area where we live added not one, but two super car washes. About a year ago, MK informed me that she had signed up for a monthly membership at “Ted’s.”
“We can add you to it if you like.”
“Nah, I’ll pass. I don’t like feeling obligated. I’d probably waste it.”
Well, sometime last year I conceded and decided to give it a try.
“Ted’s” is one of those completely automated drive-through car washes. They have a huge bank of vacuums, complimentary wet cleaning rags, and handy little air hoses that blow dirt to smithereens.
MK volunteered to go with me and help get the membership sticker attached to my windshield. Of course, she also had a few observations about how badly my car needed to be “spiffed up.”
Well, she was right. With her help, it was soon showroom ready.
Today, while I was driving her around doing errands, since her recent foot surgery has temporarily limited her mobility, she “suggested” we stop by “Ted’s”.
Who am I to turn down her help?
We pulled right into the lane marked MEMBERS and shot to the front of the line. The place was packed, with at least 30 cars occupying the vacuum stalls.
Twenty minutes later, my blue car was sparkling in the Colorado Indian summer sunshine. The inside had been relieved of nearly all the evidence of my “slightly sloppy habits.”
For forty bucks a month, we can use the place as often as we want. And we are taking full advantage of it. When winter comes, we can drive through after every messy snowstorm clears.
I must confess that I feel just a bit smug when I pull into the nearby supermarket parking lot with my sparkling blue car.
As I was driving home, I found myself wondering, “Why does a clean car make me feel happy?”
I thought perhaps if I wrote my blog about it, I might find out.
Well, for starters, it felt good to admit that I am not the only person in this family who has good ideas. Actually, MK has lots of them.
Currently, she is plotting with our roommate, grandson Zach, to completely repaint the interior of our house. Zach even used AI to show me what a new color scheme would look like.
My response?
“That’s nice. Help yourselves after my memorial service.”
This is hardly the first time MK has entertained such ambitions.
Years ago, when I was working on my doctorate at the seminary in Oklahoma, I would be gone for a week at a time. On one occasion, I returned to Alamosa late on a Saturday afternoon, tired and ready to be home.
I walked through the front door and thought I had entered the wrong house.
During my absence, MK had completely redone the entire living space.
She found me wandering around the house in a state of bewilderment.
It was my house… sort of
“What do you think?” she asked.
I realized immediately that there was only one acceptable answer.
“Well, it’s quite a change. I’m glad to see the mirror and cork wall gone.”
Another time, I came home to discover that she had rented a jackhammer, torn out the front sidewalk, and replaced the walkway from the street to our porch with moss rock.
Yes, a jackhammer.
Twenty-nine years later, we still occasionally drive by that house, a place filled with memories of raising our kids, just to see how it is doing.
The aspen trees we planted when they were barely four feet tall now tower some thirty feet above the ground. The rock walkway is still intact and holding up beautifully.
I have no idea what the inside looks like these days, but I suspect it has undergone a few more transformations.
The only constant is change.
And perhaps that is what a trip through the car wash has reminded me.
There is something satisfying about seeing the dust and dirt washed away, about discovering that something familiar can look fresh and new again.
There is also something satisfying about admitting that somebody else might have a better idea.
Even after 43 years of marriage, I am apparently still learning.
Some of the best things that have ever happened to me in my life were not my idea.
Onward and Upward,
Mark
Leave a Reply