 |
|
|
|
|
 |
 |
|
||
 |
 |
|
||
|
||||
 |
|
|||
|
||||
|
||||
Wash and WaxDecember 16, 2006 The unseasonably warm weather is back -- temps have been in the 50s for the last several days -- and finally I got the message: Uhura Mazda is long overdue for a bath. It wasn't that I couldn't see the layer upon layer of mud splashes (Martha's Vineyard may be looking more and more like one big suburban subdivision, but many of the roads are still dirt), or pretend that on two consecutive mornings overflying birds left their marks on the windshield. It was Sister Rationalization whispering in my ear: Why go to the trouble of washing it? The puddles on the Stoney Hill Road are still pretty deep, and there's more rain in the forecast. Yesterday morning, being between jobs and desperately seeking a diversion that didn't involve the written word, I did the deed. Not only did Uhura get a bath, she got a wax. I can't remember when I last waxed a motor vehicle, but I know it was long before Uhura. It was probably before Rhodry. Tesah Toyota got regular baths and yearly waxes till Rhodry came along; Rhodry's heavy coat absorbed most of the grooming energy that had previously been absorbed by the truck. (A few more years later along came Allie, who got Rhodry off the hook at least some of the time. It's true: when you've got three dependents, none of them get as much attention as one would.) Uhura looks spectacular. She glows. I can see my face in her hood. Sure she's got wrinkles -- uh, scratches -- that she didn't have when I got her, but she's been down many more dirt roads in her last 25,000 miles than in her first nearly 49,000. I sit up straighter just driving down the road. I begin to understand why many people, especially those of the guy persuasion, devote such energy to spiffing up their motor vehicles. I didn't pull over to wipe Rhodry's nose prints off the inside of the windshield -- but I considered it.
|
|
|||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
 |
|
|||
 |
|
|||
Home - Writing - Editing - About Susanna - Bloggery - Articles - Poems - Contact Copyright ©
Susanna J. Sturgis. All rights reserved. |
||||