Tom Sawyer Strikes Again; or,I knew then I hate waxing cars, apparently, I still do.

So, when I am down here at my parents house I usually take the time to wash the car.  I don't know why, but almost every time I am here I wash the car.  I drove Wife's care here, and it was pretty dirty.

So I got the ball rolling and washed it.  Then I vacuumed and wiped the whole front down with the armor all.  Then, I got the crazy idea to wax it.  This is where my grand plan seemed to go awry.

Let me rewind life a little bit.  I am about 13 or 14.  I was in the stage of life where I was looking for a way life that I would fit in to.  At the time, I thought of myself as something of a skater.  I had the skateboard, I had the crazy haircut and I had the complete inability to dress myself in a way that was generally socially acceptable (I went on a date once with this girl who was mortified that I wore plaid shorts and a striped shirt, how tacky could I be? And by the way, I never got anywhere with that girl.  Such is life).

So, being so armed with my impeccable pathetic fashion sense, I was loosed on the world many times with my cousin Nic.  He was a couple of years older than me, and now that I am thinking about it, he still is.  When Nic turned 16, he was given a 1969 Camaro.  Nic loved his '69, and it was indeed a nice car.  A good looking blue, a loud throaty engine that let out plenty of power, and me sitting in the passenger seat with my impeccable pathetic sense for fashion.  Quite honestly, I'm not sure why Nic was always so willing to let me tag along on outings, but he always was.  I remember many times going places, like Hot August Nights in Reno (and driving at insane speeds across the NV desert).

But anyway, I digress.  So, back to the waxing (no, not that kind), and how all this ties together.  I started with the hood, and it seemed like an easy task really.  Do one section, let it dry while I apply a coat to the next section.  Return to the fist and buff, and so on.  After what seemed to be about 456 minutes, I realized I had gotten myself into a bit of a project and quickly realized why it was I don't ever wax my vehicles.

I don't remember where this happened, but the act of waxing the car brought back an odd, somewhat random memory. I do remember stopping somewhere in the shade (because you don't want to apply wax in direct sunlight) and not to far off of some main drag (Nic want to make sure I understood waxing the car was a social event, and you wanted people to be able to see you).  And then he had me help him wax the car.  I don't know that I actually did a lot to help wax the car, however I must have done enough to realize that I don't particularly enjoy the project (after all, its been roughly 19 years since I applied wax to a car).  So thanks, Tom Sawyer, for teaching me early on that I don't like waxing cars.

I just wish I had realized it before I started the project today.  On the flip side, the car looks nice.  Its black, which unfortunately tends to look dirty about a nano-second after you clean it.  Next, its five years old.  So its got some wear and tear on it.  But its a Honda, and it runs perfectly.  So I suppose its good to show it a little love every now and then.

And as one last thing of note, I was searching my cousin's blog to see if he still owns the Camaro.  A quick search yielded the following information:  I found only one post that talked of the Camaro (not surprising since his wife is the author).  In this post the only information about the car of note is that it recently died and had to be pushed back to a garage.  As I recall, as a younger man, this same event happened on more than one occasion.  But I congratulate him on preserving the vehicle for this long as it is.

As for me? I don't plan to open a bottle of car wax for another 19 years.