At The Car Wash
To say I’m not a confident driver would be an understatement. Now, before I go on I want to preface that I can drive. I can get where I need to go and I’m confident driving to places I know or that are close by. I passed my driver’s test the first time, the only difference was I took it in October when my birthday is in August. I even did my 3 hours with an instructor to get my learners permit 3 months after I turned 16. I was never as excited to start driving as most other high schoolers were.
I’m just making myself sound like a danger on the road. I promise I’m not. I just prefer being the passenger princess with my headphones in and watching out the window. When I first started driving I avoided highways at ALL COSTS. They were a death zone to me. Then once I started college I commuted for my freshman year so I had no choice but to drive on the highway, and now I can do it today with no problem (depending on the amount of traffic). I had only just driven out of New Jersey for the first time in my life this past Thanksgiving weekend. It sounds a little ridiculous that in the past 5 years of me driving I’ve never driven out of the state, but I’ve never had a reason to be out of the state alone where someone else, like my parents or older sister, would have driven me. Not gonna lie, I had a breakdown before my 3 hour drive up to Connecticut to visit Will and his family, but there are car crashes every day. My first thought is always that I’m going to die. But obviously I didn’t and it was a nice easy drive!
Another fear of mine when I first started driving was drive-thrus. This probably sounds just as stupid as trying to avoid the highway and leaving the state but, listen, I’m an anxious little girl okay? The tight space of a drive-thru worried me. What also probably didn’t help was that one of my favorite shows when I was younger was The Middle. There was one episode where the daughter had just gotten her license and they were driving as a family to Disney World. The joke was that the daughter was a terrible driver and she was waiting for her turn to drive as they rotated who was driving every few hours, but the family didn’t want her to. Then when they finally let her, they decided to stop for food in a drive-thru, and she ran into a pole while trying to turn to get to the window. So that probably stuck with me. My first time in a drive-thru was at a Wendy’s at midnight after picking my sister and her friend up from a bar and now I go to drive-thrus all the time.
I feel like car washes are very similar to drive-thrus in the way that they are a tight space with a very specific course. Except car washes have the added stress of the workers telling you to inch forward on the track and making sure your car is in neutral and that you get out before the cars behind you catch up. Maybe it’s just me but car washes always seem a little sketchy. The fact that my car is on a track gives so much potential for things to go wrong or get stuck. But also the look of them itself is sketchy. They are either at a car dealership where I feel unwelcome if I drive up with my Ford at Honda, or they're small and dirty looking on a backroad.
This photo doesn’t nearly portray well enough how dusty my car always is
While I will never have a need for a car wash more than I will for a drive-thru or the highway, I feel like it’s still a good thing to get comfortable with doing. Especially once springtime comes around and my car is covered in a layer of pollen again. So, of course, I found a car wash to make myself go to.
I found a car wash that was about 7 minutes away from school. Another aspect that made this adventure more uncomfortable is that I don’t know this area as well as my hometown. There are some car washes that I haven't driven through myself but I’ve been in the car for them so I generally know how it works. When I got to the one I found, I was immediately confused. It was right outside of a neighborhood and it was a tiny building on the corner of the street. I probably looked like a stalker because I slowly circled it three times to figure out if I was in the right spot or not. I finally decided to pull in and immediately regretted it because I didn’t see any other cars, workers, or a screen to select the wash option and pay like I’m used to. Instead, before I got up to the entrance of the wash I backed out and drove off.
I looked up the second car wash I was planning on going to if I didn’t choose the first one. It wasn’t far from where I was but when I pulled up I was just as confused. Luckily there was a parking lot so I could stop to look at it and figure out what to do instead of creepily circling it. This one didn’t scare me as much as the first one did but I was still just as confused so I spent the time parked looking up a THIRD car wash to go to. I finally found one that looked like a real, big fancy car wash and started heading there. As I pulled out I realized I had a dumb moment and I was parked at the exit of the car wash. It actually looked legit and much less scary when I saw the entrance…except I was already on my way to the other one and it looked cooler so I just pretended I didn’t see anything and kept driving.
Finally, I made it to the last car wash. Unlike the other two, I felt better right when I pulled up about where to go and what to do. I also saw another car so thankfully I wasn’t the only one there. I pulled up behind the other car and saw the signs with the wash option, but no screens, so I just waited behind the car thinking the payment screen would be further up in the line where he was.
The man got out of the car and I realized he was a worker. He asked me which wash I wanted so I told him, he gave me a little slip of paper, and said to get out of the car. Excuse me, what?? I don’t think I’ve ever been to a car wash where I got out so I was scrambling to gather what I needed, like my phone and wallet, and hoped out unprepared for this twist. I almost took my keys out of the car too as an automatic response to getting out.
Turns out this car wash is pretty much full service. They vacuum the car first before sending it through the wash. I was already stressed because I wasn’t expecting people IN my car so I had stuff everywhere. I thought I was just going to have a cute little ride through a car wash and watch the foam and rollers clean my car through the windshield. Instead, I just stood inside waiting for them to send my car through, hoping they weren’t too mad at me for all the random objects and trash.
When they finally sent my car through I got to watch the show I thought I’d be sitting in my car for, from the outside. It was still fun to see as if I was in the car, but again, not what I was expecting. One thing that I thought was really cool was that they had “water” guns on the wall called “suds blasters” that shot soap at your car as it went through. I’m sure they built these in for kids when their parents have to drag them along to a car wash, but I was loving it!
When my car made it all the way through, I stepped outside thinking they would just park the car and hand it off to me. I was wrong again. Since this was a fancy full service, they parked the car and about five workers were around my car with cloths drying the car and cleaning the inside. This was where I was even more stressed because I thought they were done inside my car after vacuuming, but now even more people could see all the random things I had scattered everywhere. They even opened my trunk to dry off every part so it didn’t leak inside.
All the workers started walking away so I figured they were done. Until I walked up to the driver door and there was still one worker inside wiping things down. Not going to lie, he kind of scared me because I thought my car was empty. I felt bad because I didn’t want him to feel rushed, but I wasn’t going to walk away again so I just stood and watched. I felt even worse when he was cleaning the dust off my dash and the duck decoration I have hanging from my mirror and it kept smacking him in the face as he was cleaning. He didn’t seem to mind though he was just doing his thing.
When I finally got back in my car I was extremely impressed! I don’t think I’ve ever seen my car so clean. I mean obviously that’s the purpose of a car wash but I’m not used to the inside being cleaned. When I try to wipe down the dash or the windshield it just ends up streaky and there is always still dust no matter what, but now it was spotless I didn’t even want to touch anything! Even my steering wheel looked almost as good as new which I didn’t even think was possible. And it wasn’t even that expensive for the option I chose.
Even though it took a while to get there and it was the third place I attempted, I highly recommend the Jersey Auto Spa in Long Branch! If I ever need a car wash again I know where I’m going. Especially now that I've done it once so I know how it works. I also won’t look stupid by having a bunch of junk all over my car.
To celebrate my successful car wash, I came full circle and I went through a drive-thru afterwards.
I think by now I’ve done it all! (car wise of course).
