Getting the kids to wash your car

As I pulled into a gas station yesterday to gas up the old Chevy Venture, I thought: "I better get the squeegee and wash the windshield." Believe me, when it's at the point where I think the windshield needs washing, it needs washing. So I squeegeed the windows as I pumped gas. And I remembered, the kids used to wash the car's windows when I got gas.

I think it started out as one of them wanting to be a help, as young kids truthfully often do, especially in a different or unusual sort of way. Pretty soon they all wanted to help wash the windows, to the point of grabbing squeegees from adjacent washer fluid reservoirs at adjacent gas pumps, so that they, all three, could wash the windows.

Eventually they wouldn't stop there. They began washing the whole car, squeegeeing windows and doors and trunks and tailgates and even tires. It must have become a game to them, brushing washer fluid across the vehicle and scraping it off with the rubber wiper opposite the foam which held the fluid at the end of the squeegee. They were a regular pit crew working over a car as I waited for the gas tank to fill.

A couple of times I actually had to slow down the rate of fill so that they could get the entire van done. I mean, the only thing worse than a completely dirty car is a car with a one squeegee wide path of dirt along one side.