Scrubbing off the bugs is the hardest part of a wash, the only real labor done by the bikini babes, removing locusts, flies and moths.  Lovebugs cake especially thick because they splat two at a time—they mate in flight and stay coupled for days, looking rather monstrous with two heads, eight legs, going at it bug ass to bug ass by the hundreds of thousands, wings resting atop wings, overlapping their partner, a kind of modesty overcoat as they float and blow their loads again and again until a hog rolls through and they explode.  But in their love these bugs become acidic and when their guts adorn a ride for too many days the paint will suffer pocks and the color will wane.   

The bikini babe dumps out her bucket of suds.  She is too sexy to look at directly so you bury your face in your chest.  You don’t have a hog.  You just sold your Buick Regal because your dad gave you his old Ford pickup.  I just have a truck you mumble.  And that would cost double, I guess.  She doesn’t laugh like you expect so you keep talking Forty bucks is ten times more than a decent automatic wash.  She doesn’t take offense or scoff like you expect so you keep talking But your wash is sexy, too.  And this is where you ask her name and tell her yours and hint at the ecstasy of melding her style of wash with yours but now the thought of the feel of her straddling you over the vibration of the high pressure rinse takes over your brain save the parts worrying about how fast you can unbelt your workpants and how clean you’ve left the cab of your truck and whether so many fast food wrappers is a deal breaker or if an inbay-rollover wash is close enough to keep her from fearing she’s been abducted and by now you don’t even need to look up to know she is already walking away.

A Wash in Reality 

You grew up hearing compliments about your imagination more than anything else (so vivid and always churning).  You took pride in this, that people saw something good in you and that it was something so easy: making shit up.  Your imagination is still vivid and churning but as an adult this tends to be less and less a characteristic people are willing to give you credit for. Often you’re now characterized as unrealistic or disconnected or aloof.  Time and the expectation of maturation (you ever gonna get a real job, son?) have made it clear that imagination flirts with both sides of the line that separates assets from disabilities.