Control

It was a beautiful day in northeast Iowa today. Sunny, temperatures in the 50’s, a little breezy this morning but it calmed down a lot by the afternoon. So, naturally, I (and about half the town) decided to get my car washed today. Full disclosure: I don’t wash my car all that often. It’s 14 years old, it has over 175,000 miles on it, and it’s not the prettiest thing, but it’s paid off and it’s a hybrid, so it helps keep my commuting costs down. But I don’t want it to rust out, and after several months of commuting, often on the interstate, it was just filthy–caked with salt and grime from winter roads. And I was out and about anyway, so I decided to try a fairly new car wash in town for the first time.

First of all, when I pulled up to this car wash, there were two lanes and the lines in them were about the same length, so I just hopped into one. It wasn’t until I was blocked in by another car behind me that I got close enough to see that there was nowhere in my lane to pay–there was just a place to touch a member card, like a fast pass. I didn’t know what to do. I put my car in reverse, hoping the person behind me would notice and back out far enough that I could back out and get in the other lane, but in the 20 seconds or so that I sat there with my car in reverse she never even looked up from her phone.

Then, I called over to the employee that was handling payment in the other lane and asked how I could pay because I was trapped in. She was helping me through it, and I asked if the lane was marked somehow and she said, “Yeah, it’s…oh, I guess our sign blew away…” So then I didn’t feel quite as dumb, but I was still a little embarrassed and I felt bad that she’d had to help me and that I’d kept others waiting a couple of extra minutes. But, whatever. I paid, she raised the gate, and I joined the queue for the actual wash.

I was expecting the typical drive-thru car wash, where it’s all automated, but as I pulled closer to the wash bay I saw that there were actual humans with hoses giving each vehicle a sort of pre-wash as they entered. So, not what I’m used to, and I was still a little flustered from being in the wrong line, but not a huge deal. Then it was my turn, and everyone seemed to be in a big hurry. The guys with the hoses kept motioning me forward, and then a light flashed on a sign that said, “Put car in Neutral”, and “Take foot off brake”, and the next thing I knew I was being pulled forward by some mechanism in the floor. And then my car was covered in foam, and I couldn’t see a thing.

It almost reminded me of driving in really heavy fog or snow, except since I wasn’t actually driving, and was just being pulled along, I felt out of control and incredibly uneasy. At least when I’m driving in sketchy conditions, I still have control over how fast I go, and can change direction if I’m about to run into something. Here, I knew there was a pickup right in front of me, but I couldn’t see it at all. Then lights started flashing in all different colors, which is probably supposed to be a cool effect, but for my already addled brain it was almost too much. But, just as I’d been a few minutes earlier in the line, I was trapped. So I started thinking about how the whole experience was sort of like being in new or uncomfortable situations in life, over which we have very little control. And I decided it might be a good topic for a blog post, so I pulled out my phone and took a few pictures.

There was a moment when I was being moved slowly through this weird tunnel with flashing lights, that I realized I wouldn’t have been surprised if they piped Willy Wonka singing through my car speakers somehow.

But that didn’t happen. And I didn’t run into the pickup in front of me. And then, the foam was rinsed off and, after being blasted by the dryers for a minute or so, the door opened, the world came back into focus, and I was in control again. And my car was clean! Well, cleaner than it had been at least. I don’t know if this story really had a point, but the experience did remind me that sometimes it’s okay to relinquish a little control over some things in life, especially if it leads to something positive. And it’s also okay to try new things and get a little bit uncomfortable. But that tunnel seen in Willy Wonka is still creepy af…