When the famously abundant pollens of the Sonoma Valley have covered your windshield with a thick, impenetrable haze of yellow, you can do like the old-timers do: simply drive around town with your head craning out the driver’s side window like a lucky Labrador and hope for the best. But if your vehicular temperament skews a bit more towards the cautious, or you just like to keep your equipment pristine, this weekend you’d have a plethora of car-washing options. Seriously. Lately, there seems to be no end to the stream of peppy do-gooder’s with terry cloth towels eager to scrub your ride.
For the lone wolf, there’s always Chicken Jery’s, the self-serve joint famous for the feral poultry and the aggravated near neighbors. But for the civic-minded, those of us whose extra-large hearts yearn for virtuous philanthropic outlet, there are the fundraising car washes crowding town. It’s a virtual smorgasbord of choice. Missing the melting pot of urbania? Let the boys of Hannah scrub your wheels. Feeling guilty about your spotty church attendance? Devout boys and girls from local religious schools will forgive you and wash your car. All good, and yet…where’s the five dollar car wash that promises to ply us with a perfectly chilled pinot grigio while gently massaging our tight, tight shoulders, or even—dare we dream—our feet? That’s a wine country car wash, people. I for one am determined to keep squinting through my increasingly opaque windshield until I find it.
