IT WAS A DARK And STORMY
NIGHT…
When
I realized that I hadn’t gotten the car washed as promised, before she went off
with all the ladies on the block to their annual knitting convention! She would
be home early the next morning and the car wash was already closed! There was
not a minute to lose and I grabbed my swimming trunks so as to get my shower in,
and kill two birds with one stone (as the cliché goes), a bucket of water, and the
dishwashing liquid from the kitchen, avoiding dirty dish mountain, which would
also need to be dealt with, and a clean sponge and dashed out the front door, splashing
soapy water all over the car and scrubbing it down like a man possessed, as
stormy skies rumbled while thunder and lightning flashed across the night sky in
the distance. After a few minutes the living room light went on next door and
Fred came running out in his boxer shorts also carrying similar implements to
rectify his slovenly behavior and procrastination! One by one lights flickered
on all the way down the street like a Christmas tree with an electrical short as
panic struck! Soon there were middle aged men with their paunches and skinny,
hairy, white legs and thinning hair with bald spots and coke bottle glasses running
around in their underwear or swimming trunks washing cars in a bizarre
haphazard fashion all the way down the long block. Sometimes they concentrated
on their own car and sometimes two or three consorted together to attend to a
particular vehicle that was particularly filthy. Friendships were formed that
night and acquaintances evolved into friends as this was an extreme emergency and
the domestic tranquility of the community hung in the balance. As I stopped
momentarily, it looked like a scene from a movie as if everyone had gone insane
with a mass of tangled garden hoses like a den of snakes spitting and sputtering
their venom, slithering and crisscrossing each other while middle aged men ran
around haphazardly carrying buckets of soapy water and tripping over themselves
through this outdoor aquatic insane asylum. I had started a movement! Now the
rains came teeming down dousing men and cars and washing everything clean and
pristine. Possies of men ran from house to house washing each other’s mounds of
dishes, vacuuming rugs and generally setting things right for the tastes of the
fairer sex.
When
the rain finally stopped and the first light of dawn came, all of the cars
looked beautiful and pristine not to mention that a considerable improvement
had been made to the personal hygiene of the male population as well! It looked
as if through some miscommunication the Auto Show had come to town and finding
the Jacob Javits Center occupied, they settled instead on this residential road.
With all of the money the men saved by washing the cars themselves, a poker game
was planned and a poker tournament scheduled for the next weekend, to which the
delighted ladies had no objection, having been astonished to find their homes
looking like the centerfolds from Homes and Gardens. I did quite well in the
tournament until the last round, losing to Tom, a CPA. As it turned out
procrastination could have a silver lining not unlike the oft mentioned cloud.
Jim
June 2022
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