washer needs washer

In the early days, when internal combustion engines were a minority sport, drivers would purchase gas /petroleum / l'essence from pharmacies. Pharmacies would carry a wide range of products including olive oil in tiny bottles for the treatment of earache; laudanum for any old pain; dill water at 4% ethanol for tired and/or tiresome babies. Soon enough however there was enough traffic to justify setting up 'garages' as specialist ventures dealing with all aspects of car maintenance and repair and even 'petrol stations' which couldn't replace a fan-belt or fix a puncture but did sell fuel to keep folk motoring along.

Recently the wheel has come full-circle as petrol stations extend their inventory to include breakfast rolls, Red bull, Werner's toffees, crap coffee at riotous mark-up; cigarettes. Not only goods, but also services. Car wash is a natural extension and they have been attached to service stations for decades now. We were tickled last year to see a couple making a sudsy mess with their cocker spaniel at the far end of Pickardstown Service Station outside Tramore. Dau.II was driving and said that if her Rashers was still alive, she would SO be down at Barks & Bubbles on the regular.

I was down in Pickardstown, for reasons, over the May bank holiday weekend and had time to walk over to read the small print of what B&B offered and how much it cost. Q. Would it cost more, or less, to suds your mutt or your wheels? What I saw close up:

. . . nipped that research project in the bud! The machine's waist-level for easy handling wash-trough was filled with clots of hair and other matter. Call me sensitive but the thought of it put me off my dinner later that day and ensured that no dog of mine would be using the patient zero facilities at Pickardstown. ugh!

The reason I had time to hang out among the robots of NE Tramore was that I was delegated to mind an emergency duvet wash. Thankfully the dog-bath was not involved in the project. It was rather the Laverie Libre Service laundrette:

I was leery about going inside because the signage was all in French, and I didn't want it to suddenly relocate itself Tardis-like to the docks of Marseille at the height of the 1968 strikes and marches. If it's fine you can sit on the CocaCola bench looking at the car-wash and the traffic coursing by on the road out of Dodge. If [more likely] it's raining there a three little seats facing the machines. Someone else had started the process, I was merely instructed to transfer the said duvet to the drier when it was clean. For sure, I would have balked at paying for a cleaning project which involved starting with this

as the detergent input unit. The centre right orifice was actually pulsing with life, the other three merely filthy. The French have a word for it: dégueulasse. The washing machine finished its cycle but was showing an error message Error 5: tilt high sp. which I felt morally obliged to report the company's Service Line. Some poor family in Tramore might need to use that big machine, and not have the option of buying a new duvet. At least the drier was clean to my cursory inspection and had our duvet dry and toasty warm 30 minutes and €7.00 later. 

I spent several months sudsing the family laundry in the bath of our rental flat in 1983, before choosing to load everything into an enormous hand-sewn laundry bag and draping it over the back-carrier of my bike. What I did when I got to the laundrette wasn't my shiniest moment. So [clothes] washing-machines are IMO one of the benefits and boons of late-stage capitalism. Having one at home, at the ready, 24/365,  has some downside for the planet because clothes which have been merely worn are put through their cycles at some cost to the planet and water-table.

Making a machine to wash a dog is just a stupid exploitative idea. And IMO car-washes are not far behind as an idea that sounds good but is actually a redundant layer of extractive capitalism. I wash the car occasionally. I use a bucket, a soft broom, and a smidge of detergent. 15 minutes later, the car is clean enough for the poor fellers who have to carry out the NCT test. And I get a moderate work out. While waiting for the duvet to dry, I watched a succession of cars pull up beside the self-service car-wash and apply soapy water with a wand on the end of a hose. A few minutes later, they waved a power-washer at it to rinse off the soap. But they still had to scrub at their wheels with a water blurfing brush. It therefore costs them €5 to get their work-out - I bet they're members of a gym [€350/year!] too. 

While I was duvet waiting I noticed that one of the car-wash hoses was making a poor connexion [you can't see the fine mist on top of the steady stream] and went, wearing my best civic duty uniform, to tell the STAFF in the shop. A few minutes later, a young feller came out and untangled the hoses which was a wrong-wrong-almost-right not-a-solution. In contrast to the other extractive robots on the site, which badly needed a Wash, this one only needed a Washer [Har har, Bob, a waggish quip forsooth!]. Something needs to be done to minimize the consumption of clean, fluoride-treated drinking water to . . . wash cars. Wot are we like?

Literal me also likes the generously expansive statement IF IN ANY DIFFICULTY PLEASE SEE A MEMBER OF STAFF FOR ASSISTANCE. ANY DIFFICULTY? my corns need cutting . . . the lawn wants mowing . . . I have 3 sticks of celery and half a cabbage in the fridge . . .