Reflections on the Tenth Week of Winter – Country Car Washing 

   Monday, I opened the Subaru door to the assaulting odor of dead fish. Yuck. An escaped piece or two of an on-the-go sandwich was completing the death cycle somewhere in the car’s interior. Impossible to tell if the culprit was trout or salmon. Holding my breath, I powered down the front windows, backed out of the garage, and headed for the YMCA. Wind blew hair in my face and chilled the arthritis in my neck. I closed the windows, took a tentative sniff, and hoped the brief country airing fixed the problem.

   It didn’t. After swimming laps, I opened the Subaru door to the smell of dead fish. Double yuck. I’d have to clean the car.

   Car washing in the country is as efficient as raking leaves in a windstorm. Dirt lanes keep the white Subaru looking like a guernsey cow. Though rain dirties cars in the city, country folks use rain to wash off some of the caked mud. That kind of country car washing wouldn’t work this time. If I was going to drag out the vacuum cleaner, I might as well give the Subaru the full inside, outside, showroom clean job. I just had to wait for a warm enough day. 

   I didn’t wait long. 

   Friday, two days shy of a year from the day I drove the showroom clean Subaru out of the Franklin dealership and into a snow storm, sunshine warmed the air to a record breaking 71º F (21.67º C). I parked the Subaru at the end of the house driveway then lugged vacuum, extension cords, rags, Subaru recommended concentrated car cleaner, and two five gallon buckets to the wash site.

   With the narrow-nosed crevice tool, the vacuum whirred and sucked dust, pebbles, and schmutz. I didn’t see any identifiable fish particles, but the nozzle may have reached them under the seat. I took a deep breath. Fragrance of spring mud–progress.

     I filled the buckets a quarter full with cistern water so that I could carry them up the rise to the driveway. They stretched my arms longer than the standing forward bend pose in yoga. Pouring the red syrupy cleaning concentrate released the fragrance of cherry lollipops.

    Did Subaru executives imagine children would be washing cars?

    The cistern had kept melted snow water melted snow cold. But I didn’t pull on waterproof gloves because the sunshine warmed the rest of my body to sweaty-hot.

    While I sloshed cleaner, splashed rinse water, and toweled dried the car, wind clanged chimes and tousled my air. On the road, dump trucks hauled gravel, pickups towed horse trailers, and every vehicle raised dust. As planned, the settling dust didn’t reach the car at the end of the driveway.

    After I’d washed the interior vinyl and dried the last window, Spence came outside and said, “The car looks like it should be in the showroom not the dirty garage.”

    Backing the Subaru out of the house driveway, I crept five miles per hour to the garage driveway so I wouldn’t raise dust then slipped into the slot beside the country mud splashed truck.

    On the next trip to the YMCA, the car will regain its mud splashes. In the meantime, it’ll smell of window washing fluid instead of reeking like dead fish.