After driving around on errands yesterday morning, I came home to discover that I had one more: the clicker to open the gate on my building's car park wasn't working, dead battery. To deal with it later, I parked on the street...under a tree. Oops.
So Car is now covered with little specks of Tree Gunk, the windows are a mess, it's probably overdue for a little TLC, and I can't expect rain to wash any of it off. After going in to work for while this afternoon, I drove past a few of the gas stations I know, and none of them have an automatic car wash: y'know, the kind with the spray and the big rollers and brushes that as a child was a terrifying thrill, that takes 5 minutes. It's all I need: I don't want a hand wash or wax or anything like that.
I've now searched online--Google and Yelp--for car washes in Oakland/Berkeley. The only listings are for hand car washes which almost universally get panned in their reviews, even for $20+ it seems. There are detailing outfits with good reviews, but for $100+ I'd expect even my car to be frickin' sparkling inside and out.
There may be a couple things going on here. First, Alameda County may have different ideas about water use, which may discourage the installation of automatic car washes. Second, the balance of the high capital cost of the equipment versus the availability of dirt-cheap unskilled labor may favor hand washes. This area does not seem to like investing in itself.
Crap. Well, Car doesn't get used during the week anyway.
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3 comments:
there's one at the end of piedmont ave, near where 51st turns into whatever street it turns into. down near the cemetary.
it's a ken bett's chevron. it's got the wet spaghetti and all.
i need to go there too.
Detailing is for people who *like* their cars, Russell.
L: I need the wet spaghetti. I hope they'll let me go through the wet spaghetti and not bother with hand-washing or brushing or any such bother. 5 minutes or less, I'm outta there.
dp: Um, well, I do like my car. I just don't care what other people think of it most of the time.
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