These are actual Carwash happenings, with the first one involving my oldest grandson and me. The other two stories, let me just say happened under everyday circumstances for the two involved.

My Carwash Story

I had just bought a new 1995 model Oldsmobile 98. A big fancy Olds. It was almost the size of a Abrams Army Tank. A recently remodeled Texaco station at Texas 29 and I-35 in Georgetown had just been reopened for business. Tyler, my first grandson was about 3 year old. He went with me as often as I could take him. We stopped to fill up with gas and wanted to try out the new car wash with the big whirling brushes. Something I figured Tyler would get a kick out of driving in that tunnel and seeing the car washed from the inside.

When we first entered everything was going fine. Suddenly the loudest popping sound started. It was like gun shots. There was a rhythm to it. I could see that the windshield was broken. It had to be gunshots. By that time I had shoved Tyler into the passenger floor and I was on top of him. There really wasn’t room for us both to be in that small of an area. It was coming from the front and then from the rear. It keep going. I’d gotten the super duper wash. We couldn’t just drive out. Finally the rinse cycle started and the shooting stopped.

I can remember Tyler saying over and over “wat wud dat dandad, wat wud dat.” Fearful I didn’t want to drive out, but I sure didn’t want to be sitting ducks waiting for the shooter to reload. Then I noticed a length of garden hose dangling from the brushes.

We drove forward out of the car wash. When I got out of the car I discovered that my new car didn’t have many straight pieces of tin on it, the windshield was smashed and the drivers side mirror was broken out.

All this due to a worker cleaning the stall out had left a garden hose stretched out in the floor and the brushes had picked it up. The brass end had done the damage. Almost $5,000 worth of damage.

Of course it couldn’t be as simple as the manager taking responsibility for it and give me his insurance company name. It was my fault. I shouldn’t have driven in there if a hose was left laying in the floor. Things got a little western (as they say) before he turned over the information I was requesting.

Poor Little Tyler still may not like car washes to this day. I need to ask him.

A Cowboy At The Carwash

Ricky decided he needed to wash his pickup so he headed in to one with the big whirling brushes. All was good until the big center brush picked up one end of a lariat rope the was laying back in the bed.

I know you probably already guessed that the rope started coming around beating the heck out of his truck. If so you’d be wrong. The loop on the other end went perfectly around the trailer hitch knob in the center of the bed. When the rope wound around the brush to where it completely stopped everything, the side brushes were blocking the doors on both sides. He was completely captive in the cab of his pickup. Thoughts of putting it in gear and driving out I’m sure crossed his mind. That’s probably what I would have done. Here let me start over on that last sentence, I would have driven out.

But think about it for a second. If he had done that, he most likely would have dragged $25 or $30 thousand worth of equipment out the other side. But also very likely he would have done thousands of dollars with of damage to his truck as well.

Keeping his composure he opened the small rear sliding window and tightly squeezed out with pocket knife in hand. Snip snip and that cowboy was free to ride another day.

I always wondered if he took the time to unwind his rope and take it with him of if he left it there to beat someone else’s car to smithereens.

It’s All About Timing – A Carwash Story That Was Close To Home

A fellow I know used to enjoy having a few beers in the afternoon as he’d make his round feeding cattle and such.

It was pretty late in the evening, or perhaps I should say night, it occurred to him that he didn’t want to start the next day with a dirty pickup. So he pulled into an automatic carwash, the kind that has an arm that starts at the front on the passenger side and slowly makes its way down that side, circles around the back and heads back to the front spraying soap and water the whole way.

Now this fellow I know isn’t always the most patient guy. He’s generally in a little bit too much of a hurry.

Sitting there as the car wash started in motion, it hit him that with all the beer he had drank that his blatter was completely full.

Being late, with very few people still out, he figured he could get out and relieve himself and get back in before the machine made its way around to the drivers door. It was a big 4 door long bed pickup so it took a little while for the thing to circumnavigate the whole rig.

The way the story was told to me, this fellow, trying to be discreet, had his back to the sprayer bar. Next thing he knew, his timing was off or the pleasures of what he was doing took over and he glanced around to see there was no way he could get back in the pickup and there wasn’t anywhere to break and run to.

He was able to wedge his body between the traveling mechanism and the door. It pushed him backwards until everything finally came to a stop. I would figure there a safety of some sort that finally kicked a breaker.

Soaking wet, he was able to get free of the machine and get back in and drive forward. Besides having a pickup cab full of water he said that door never did close right after that.

Now when it comes to me confirming or denying that my brother is the one this happened to, I’ll just say several things about the story fits his modus operandi and leave it at that.