Car Wash

Hey, get your car washed today. Fill up and you don’t have to pay. ~Car Wash, theme from Shark Tale

A neighbour just moved in and his parking lot is just next to ours. My mom had a look at his Kancil and complained that it was in an “intolerably dirty” condition.

I’m not an automobile buff. Poor people like me don’t (and can’t afford to) treat a car as an object of obsession. My mom isn’t obsessed with cars either, but she can be quite rigid when it comes to the cleanliness of her car. She’s constantly bugging me to wash the car.

“Not again! Didn’t I just wash it three days ago?” I’d plead. However, the reply I’d usually get is a sharp “no”.

“Don’t forget you’re driving the car too and therefore you have the responsibility to keep it clean!”

Sigh. My mom isn’t the only person who is over-conscious about the cleanliness of her car. Firstly, there’s David from the ground floor whom I notice, cleans and waxes his prized Kia on every alternate day. Okay, maybe I have a bad memory, but I swear he cleans it more often than the average person would!

Then, there are the two sisters from the other block who dominate the car wash bay for at least one hour every Sunday evening. So, if I were to wash the car on Sunday, I’ll have to do so before five. There were a few times that I went late and had to wait really long for them to brush the tyres, scrub the car till spick-and-span, and patiently dry the body with a piece of cloth. Not really long, actually. Maybe just enough for you to grow a beard or perm your hair twice.

My car wash routine, on the other hand, is over-simple. First, hose the body of the car once. Then, mix car shampoo with a pail of water and scrub the car with sponge. Hose again, and you’re done! Easy, huh? It’d usually take only ten minutes. Actually, five minutes is the record I achieved last Sunday.

You see, the car wash bay has some tall trees which are infested by giant red ants. My neighbour got stung by them on a few occasions and had terribly painful swellings; my father is probably allergic to the ant’s bite and gets rashes all over the body when he’s stung. He got bitten twice and had to get injections and take antihistamine.

Last Saturday was my turn to get a taste of the ant’s bite. It came as a sharp sting. When I look down at my hand, there it was! The giant Amazonian red ant clamped on the little finger on my right with its oversized mandibles! Holy cow! I shook it off my finger instead of squashing it. That, I think was a wise move because who knows, it might excrete toxin that would have caused severe skin irritation. Remember the rove beetles in Seberang Perai?

I wasn’t sure whether my pinkie is going to survive, so I finished washing the car in record time and rushed home for an “emergency” treatment – lime juice to neutralise the ant’s saliva which is alkaline. Well, it actually worked! No swelling, and it didn’t even hurt unless I poked it. Ha-ha, and no allergic reaction too, thank goodness! How silly was I to worry so much.

Anyway, now I have an excuse for not washing the car!

Thank God I’m still alive and kicking. Except… Aw, itchy, itchy!