{"id":262,"date":"2012-07-08T20:05:51","date_gmt":"2012-07-09T03:05:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/calirose.com\/blog\/?p=262"},"modified":"2012-07-08T20:05:51","modified_gmt":"2012-07-09T03:05:51","slug":"a-new-kind-of-car-wash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/calirose.com\/wackyworld\/a-new-kind-of-car-wash\/","title":{"rendered":"A Car Wash Thrill Ride"},"content":{"rendered":"

I arrive at my house party gig way too early. The trip from my part of Los Angeles to their<\/em> part of the San Fernando Valley is not so far as the seagull flies, but seagulls don\u2019t have to drive on the 405 Freeway which has turned into a 24\/7 construction zone. One little bumper-thumper can jam up the road as if there\u2019s molasses on the asphalt. That is why I leave extra early for my gigs these days.<\/p>\n

So what to do with this bonus hour? I know. I\u2019ll drive around. Sightsee.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s when I see, I mean really \u201csee\u201d that my windshield is streaked with splotches of \"\"<\/a>gray goo, that a family of crows have left puddles of their digested breakfast on the hood of my car, that the sticky flowers that hang over our carport have turned the rear end of my white sedan into an explosion of purple mush. Obviously I don\u2019t usually consider this an issue of major importance. But tonight I am parking in a client\u2019s driveway and suddenly I want to make a good impression. Boy oh boy, where did that come from?<\/p>\n

So I set out to find a drive-through car wash and finally land at a Shell Station. \u201cHow do you do car washes here?\u201d I ask the nice man. First I plunk down $7.00. Then he meets me around the corner, punches some code into a machine and instructs me to drive forward, which I do and obviously do too<\/em> well. \u201cNO! NO! BACK! BACK!\u201d He\u2019s screaming now. There is genuine panic in his voice.<\/p>\n

Finally I position my car just right,\u00a0<\/em>the nice man disappears and I\u2019m thinking “like what the hell is going on here?\u201d I have never been in a car wash where you just sit there and the car wash moves<\/strong>. How wacky is that?<\/p>\n

But that is exactly what happens. All of a sudden a giant, watery, blowy contraption slides front to back and overhead. It feels like I\u2019M<\/strong> moving, but how could that be? And where am I going? And the parking brake is on? This is very trippy. And it\u2019s still just Cycle One: Wet<\/em> down the car. Then the \u201cmagic cleaning machine\u201d repositions itself in front and sprays ribbons of bubbly.<\/p>\n

A couple rinse cycles later I\u2019m getting the hang of this and am already anticipating the big finale. A mighty wind. But that is an understatement. It\u2019s like this monster-machine has the power of ten thousand Hoover Vacuum cleaners set in reverse thrust. When the thing blows, my car shudders and sways back and forth and the poor windshield wipers thwap, thwap, thwap<\/em> furiously against the glass. I swear I can feel the air pressure inside the \u201ccabin\u201d shift a millibar or two. This is turning into a \u201cClose Encounters of the Third Kind\u201d moment. Right here on the corner of Burbank and White Oak Boulevards.<\/p>\n

And suddenly it\u2019s over. A sign flashes \u201cDrive Forward.\u201d I grind the ignition because I’m so dazzled that I forget the car is still running\u2014OOPS\u2014then carefully re-enter the world as I know it and drive to the birthday gig in the hills. I might add, my car has transformed into a sparkling jewel. I can hardly believe it.<\/p>\n

New experiences often befuddle and confuse me. But the second time through\u2026 Well, bring on the wind.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I arrive at my house party gig way too early. The trip from my part of Los Angeles to their part of the San Fernando Valley is not so far as the seagull flies, but seagulls don\u2019t have to drive on the 405 Freeway which has turned into a 24\/7 construction zone. One little bumper-thumper can jam up the road as if there\u2019s molasses on the asphalt. That is why I leave extra early for my gigs these days. So … Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","kt_blocks_editor_width":"","_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-262","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogentry"],"taxonomy_info":{"category":[{"value":2,"label":"blog entry"}]},"featured_image_src_large":false,"author_info":{"display_name":"Cali Rose","author_link":"https:\/\/calirose.com\/wackyworld\/author\/crbauthor\/"},"comment_info":0,"category_info":[{"term_id":2,"name":"blog entry","slug":"blogentry","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":2,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":138,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":2,"category_count":138,"category_description":"","cat_name":"blog entry","category_nicename":"blogentry","category_parent":0}],"tag_info":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/calirose.com\/wackyworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/calirose.com\/wackyworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/calirose.com\/wackyworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calirose.com\/wackyworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calirose.com\/wackyworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=262"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/calirose.com\/wackyworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/calirose.com\/wackyworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=262"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calirose.com\/wackyworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=262"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calirose.com\/wackyworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=262"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}