a genetic obsession

Malcolm has 2 favorite things about the farm.  Golf balls and the sandbox.  He will run for the door saying, “Side! Side!”  Once you take him “side,”  he immediately wants to visit the “simbok” where he can drive his truck in the sand.  After a few minutes, he is ready to go find a “goball,”  of which there are many due to the large, flat, grassy areas perfect for practicing one’s putt.  He has one other obsession that was in the early stages of developing when we first left Florida, and as we spent many hours in the car, it became a surefire way to calm him down when he had just about had enough.  It is the car wash.  Although previously terrified of it, he now can’t seem to get enough.  As soon as we get in the car, “cawas?”  We must have stopped for car washes at least 3 times on our way out here.  It was great to have a nice clean car, but I started to feel guilty.  Car washes are probably terrible for the environment, right?  Not so.  I happened upon a blurb in the July 2009 Real Simple that informed me that at car washes, they are required to properly dispose of the runoff water.  The water, loaded with oil, anitfreeze, and gas that your car has picked up from driving on the roads, must either be drained to the local sewage treatment plant or it is recycled on-site by the car wash.  If you wash your car in your driveway, that water goes into the storm drains, and eventually local rivers and creeks.  Also, car washes tend to use less water, about 30 gallons, which you will blow through in about 4 minutes of running the garden hose.  And there it is.  My justification for not washing my car myself.  Any of you that have known me a while, probably know I am well skilled in car-detailing, as it was a requirement in my family.  When I got my first car, my father immediately taught the proper method of detailing because, if you had a car, you knew how to detail it.  And you did it.  Every weekend.  Well, 15 years and 3 kids later, I buy the $5 car wash once every 2 weeks or so.  And I use a tire brush to sweep the dirt out of the interior of my car while I sit in parent pick-up at Henry’s school.  And I wipe the dash with a baby wipe.  Oh well.  At least Malcolm’s happy.  “Cawas!”