Cleaning cars

I don't clean my car.

It's always been a kind of "grudge purchase" - or grudge activity I suppose - with me. I never saw the point of washing something that was going to get dirty again more or less immediately. It's not like a freshly-laundered shirt, where you can avoid dropping your dinner down it. At least for a day or so. Usually. No, with a car, you can't avoid the rain, the mud, the fumes, the dust and - most recently - the volcanic ash. Cars get dirty no matter how "careful" you are.

So I don't bother. Unless it's a special occasion. Like the arrival of the outlaws. Which means it might get a wash once a year, if it's lucky. I drive past one of those "best hand job in Manchester" places every day after dropping Nikki at work, but I even begrudge the six quid it would cost me for the minor detour (it's right there on the main road, so only a swerve or two will do it) to let someone else wash it for me.

Don't get me wrong, I understand the attraction of owning and driving a gleaming polished machine. I just can't be arsed.

But I had to smile at the guy I saw pull in there this morning in his soft-top Merc. I mean, to my mind, the damn thing was ALREADY CLEAN.