That's the Best Ride of the Night Ladies and Gentlemen!

So, as mentioned previously, I left the house yesterday morning, after doing my Daily Dozen with Denise Austen, and getting dressed to fabulous. Can I just say, as an aside, that I'm a big Denise fan? And mostly it's because Denise is the polar opposite of Jillian Michaels. That woman scares the heck out of me and makes me angry all in the same second. Seriously. I do not want someone screaming "STEP IT UP MAGGOT!!!! GET THOSE LEGS UP! UP! UP! PUSH! PUSH! PUSH!! WHAT???!! YOU'RE STOPPING BECAUSE YOU'VE DISLOCATED YOUR SPLEEN??!!! THERE'S NO STOPPING IN JILLIAN'S WORLD!!!" I like Denise because she's nice to me; she cheers for me and says, "That's right, you can do one more leg lift!! There you go, good job!!" Yep, I prefer people to be nice to me when I'm sweating and crying. But I digress.

I was headed on down the road to see The Woman Who Makes Me Look Fabulous, because my roots were long overdue for a touch-up, and my hair was getting so long the only style I could pull off without bursting into tears in the morning was a ponytail. If I have a bad hair morning, it sets the tone for the whole day, and the tone is not melodic. This gal is a magician. But the only time my hair looks perfect is when she styles it for me. And apparently, our budget does not include paying her to drive an hour round-trip to make me looks gawjus every morning. J can be so unreasonable...

I have to drive on the interstate to go see the Magician, which isn't a big deal. Here in Wyo, we think nothing of driving two hours to go shopping. One way. Clearly I'm not going to let a little hour of drive time keep me from the Magician. Night before last, we got a little skiff of snow, and by the time I hit the interstate, it had melted. I'm sure you're all familiar with what that means to a windshield. Tires create a fine mud spray which coats every inch of your vehicle. This is not a problem, unless you've say, forgotten to refill your washer fluid reservoir. Not that I would ever forget to do so, but hypothetically, it could reduce a gal's visibility. And hypothetically, if you turn on your wiper blades to clear the fine mud spray, and you don't have any washer fluid, you just sort of smear the mud all over the windshield. Turns out smeared mud is far more difficult to see through than finely sprayed mud. Hypothetically.

Anyway, I arrived in one piece, she worked her magic, and two hours later, I headed home to pick up WyoBaby from school. After swinging by the house to grab her swimsuit and towel for her lesson, I decided we had time to run through the automatic car wash. Because hypothetically, my windshield was smeared with mud, and I cannot stand a dirty windshield. And I like my car much better when it's shiny. Now, there is an Urban Legend in our town which tells of an automatic car wash so diabolical, it's been known to toss a Suburban around like a rag doll while a small child hollers from the back of the vehicle, "Let me drive Mom!!! I can get us out of here, I know I can!! JUST LET ME DO IT!!" But folks, that is just a myth, and the car wash doesn't scare me. At least, it never used to...

When I was a young lass, I played girls' softball. One summer, I got into a wicked batting slump, and every time I walked up to the plate, I was so mentally psyched out, my slump continued to decline. Almost to the point where I would refuse an at-bat. My dad explained that it happens to every batter, at some point, and that eventually, it would just take care of itself. Turns out he was right, and one day, just when I had become convinced I would never connect with another softball, I knocked it clean out of the park. (Well, not really. It's just a figure of speech.) The point of this story is to lay the foundation for what has been a rapid decline in my ability to maneuver through the automatic car wash, or as I've come to think of it, The Car Killer.

In this particular automatic car wash, there is an elevated tire track on the driver's side on which you must park your tire. If you don't do this properly, the car wash will not operate. If you don't do this properly, your car will jolt and bounce around, and the drivers waiting in line behind you will see this and giggle to themselves, "Geez, talk about your crappy drivers! Must be a woman..." In the beginning, I had no problem parking my little car right where it should be. But one day, I missed by an inch or two, and my car got high centered. When I gunned it, the car leapt off the track and lurched forward. So the next time, I was nervous about hitting the mark. I missed. And yesterday? Oh that was the worst yet. I watched the car in front of me navigate the labyrinth with the slightest of ease and thought, "No sweat. I can do this!" Boy was I wrong. Wrong wrong wrong. On my first approach I missed and had to back up for another try. I missed again, and the car bounced around for thirty seconds. On the third try, I sorta made it. Well enough for the car wash to start. The real trouble began when I had to pull forward to the dryers. Turns out I hadn't parked as well as I thought. When I tried to pull forward, the car lurched and died. After starting the car, I gave it another shot. Lurch. And die. By now I was sweating profusely and my knuckles had turned white. Started again. Lurch. And die. FOR THE LOVE OF PETE!!! Started again, backed up, and tried again. The tires were spinning and squealing. The car started bouncing around so violently I felt like a bronc rider in a pinball machine perched on an unbalanced washing machine. Meanwhile, WyoBaby is reading her Star Wars book and calling out, "Mom, what's this little thing on Obi-Wan's toolbelt?!" People, I can answer 1.3% of all Star Wars related questions under the best of circumstances. When my car is being eaten by The Car Killer, and a steady stream of expletives is piling up on my tongue, the words Star Wars don't even compute. All I could think was, "Any minute now, I'm going to hear the sound of metal shearing as the axle extricates itself from the front end of this car, and the dryers have started running, so I'm losing precious seconds of dry time!!" I have no idea how I did it, but I finally got the car out of the track. As I ran the car through the dryers, I noticed my hands were shaking. Violently. I had so much adrenaline pumping through my veins I needed a good belt of whiskey to still the shakes. After the dryers stopped, I tentatively turned into the alley, and I swear the car was pulling to the right. A lot. I'm pretty sure my little eight second ride did irreversible damage to the front-end alignment.

I'm in the biggest car wash slump of my life. Way bigger than my softball batting slump. And I don't see this one fixing itself any time soon. Guess I'll be driving all the way across town to use the other automatic car wash. The one WITHOUT the tire track. Remember, just because it's an Urban Legend doesn't mean it isn't true...And those bull riders have nothin' on me!