100 Business Days Out: Day 40 - The Car Wash

Today I was driving by Ducky’s Car Wash in San Mateo. To my total surprise, Ducky’s was hauntingly empty. I had never seen this before. As I drove by and looked in to see how long the line was (which is a natural instinct for me whether I need my car washed or not) and didn’t see any cars, I thought it must be closed on Mondays. But then I saw that they were indeed drying some cars and well, I just couldn’t resist pulling in and taking advantage of the clear sailing. So, I did. And guess who was there? It wasn’t the weekend Dads with their sons taking their weekly male bonding “want to go to the carwash? “ trip. It wasn’t the young couples who are out doing their weekend errands of which getting the car washed is one, and it wasn’t the single guys with their expensive cars who jump in and help dry the car to be sure that the staff get to every spot. Nope, none of the above. Instead, it was the stay at home mom with the kids who are too young to be in school and two couples who were at least 30 years older than me. I was the only guy in there by myself and the only guy who was of working age. Beyond the different crowd, and the lack of crowd (including that the shoeshine stand was closed too…guess not enough shoes doing the week to justify him being there), what I realized was that the carwash actually has all of the answers for all of your questions. I don’t know why I didn’t think about it before; it’s the true one-stop shop for self-help. Beyond having the greatest selection of greeting cards, there is the table of self-help books that cover every topic from how to talk to your kids about their poop, to how to raise a son, to how to strip furniture, fix a flat tire and lo and behold, right there in front of me, a book on how to retire. The book that answers all my questions, searching, ideas and consternation on how to spend your time when not working was right there, in paperback, staring right at me. What have I been doing wasting all this time blogging, the book has already been written and it’s available at the car wash. Of course it would be at the car wash…it’s where you would go to hang out when you have too much time on your hands. I should just stop writing right now and start quoting from the book. I really shouldn’t be so sarcastic as the book is quite thorough and thoughtful from what I could glean from the table of contents and a scan of the pages. But, since I don’t want to find all of the answers all at once I didn’t buy it. I figured that with all that good information and no lines during the week that I will certainly be back to the car wash soon (don’t they give you a discount if you come back within a week?) and if I still am searching for answers I might pick up the book and see if I can take a shortcut and read the car wash book on not working.