Carrie Link

MIXED MESSAGES

After the fireworks of the 4th of July, I found myself in a van with my cousin, her husband, and three children. They had driven from Chicago and claimed the van had bugs from seven states plastered to it. They were anxious to get the van washed, and for some bizarre reason, felt 10:30 PM on a holiday was the ideal time.

The carwash was located, the level of performance selected (deluxe with an underbody spray), the VISA card inserted, and away we went... or should have gone. It was not a human-operated system, no, better! All automatic!

"GO!" the green light directed us.

"STOP! the red light shouted.

We "go'ed", we stopped. Nothing. Not a damn thing, correction, a slight misting began, but there was not ACTION, no scrubbing, no movement of the promised "soft-touch" blue tendrils.

"GO!" the green light directed.

"STOP!" the red light shouted.

"GO!"

"STOP"

We inched forwards and backwards obediently, just sure that the automatic system would work as it was intended to, if only we could figure out how to follow the complex directions.

We're talking about half an hour of this. Three college educated, post-graduate level even, people, spent their 4th of July carrying on like this.

After thirty minutes of this insanity, we unanimously agreed that perhaps there was a problem with the system. Perhaps we were following the directions, but the directions were BAD. Perhaps the three of us were SMARTER than the automatic machine. Huh, ya think? Then again, perhaps we weren't, we did spend our 4th of July locked in a battle of wills with a carwash.