Imagine, if you will, that fresh from the carwash happiness and restored pride of ownership you feel when pulling away from wherever it is you have your car washed and detailed. Everything is polished, shiny, and smells like the "New Car" scent you paid extra for.
You're in this white, seven passenger minivan a lot, and it shows. Your daily three hour commute isn't kind to your vehicle, you accumulate a fair amount of highway grit and dirt every week. Your five children no longer do all their traveling with you, like a wondering pack of nomads forever in search of the next rest area or fast food stop, you could downsize. But Big Bertha is paid for. You own her outright. So you keep putting lipstick on that pig. Settling for at least a clean ride if not a new one.
So you've just gussied up that old girl, even had the spaghetti sauce and mud clods vacuumed off the back seats. Your windows and mirrors are sparking clean, you can actually see through them instead of small finger prints, stick figures, and misspelled curse words drawn into the dust. You're holding your head up high in the driver's seat a mere 10 hours later on your way to your first work stop of the day, a rural county courthouse off a state highway, when you pull up to a red light. A behemoth of a truck pulls up beside you. A red Kenworth with a garbage truck type trailer attached. From the corner of your eye the truck's signage catches your attention. Organex Recycling, it reads. You barely have time to contemplate what those words mean before there is a loud popping noise, like a liquid explosion, and you jump in your seat. Immediately, the most foul smell you have ever smelled fills the air of your cabin. It is a rotting, acidic stank. You think Satan himself has just taken a dump in your very nostrils.
You gaze around wildly to discover the windows and mirrors along the entire passenger side of your van covered in what can only be described as chunky vomit. You realize Organex Recycling has just lost its gaseous load all over Bertha.
It will not stand! It will not stand! Your light turns green and you wait for the Kenworth that has just violated you to proceed through the intersection. You're getting this guy's truck numbers. Somebody is going to answer for Bertha.
In the mean time, you begin to feel the stank settling like an oil on your upholstery, skin, and hair. How can you go into the courthouse smelling like a pig trough?
Kenworth knows what he has done to Bertha and he just idles there beside you, unwilling to proceed. You accelerate slowly through the intersection. The cars behind you give you a wide berth. You're like the kid in the lunch room who has puked all over herself. Everyone feels bad for you, but they are grossed out and you stink so no one's coming over to help out.
For 3/4 of a mile, Kenworth refuses to come close enough for you to get any details from his signage. Dude has obviously pooped on someone else before.
You see a carwash up ahead on the left. The stank is making your eyes start to water and you can see next to nothing through the ruination that is the glass along your passenger side.
Agonized but desperate, you whip into the car wash. The attendant is startled by the stank and chunks of putrifying organics dripping from your vehicle.
"It isn't vomit," you blurt as you trust the young attendant your debit card. "Well, not exactly. I mean, it's food, mostly, I think, but it wasn't digested."
He backs away from you like you could possibly ralph all over him at any second. "It costs three dollars more to scrub the windows," he practically whimpers.
Silently, you gag. You want to cry for him, but he's wearing muck boots and you have on ballet flats. "God bless and good luck," you whisper through the two inch crack in your driver's window as you hear the sweet sound of the water jets roar to life in the wash tunnel.
[Big Bertha, tubbed and scrubbed]
