The tragicomedy of the egged car

Talk about it

Call me crazy, but my idea of fun isn’t throwing eggs at cars when it’s 20 degrees below zero. But apparently, someone doesn’t agree.

Sub-zero temperatures had kept me snuggled in my house for two days. When I finally ventured out into the cold to start my car, there it was.

Eggs. Two of them. Frozen solid on the driver’s side and trunk of my car. It appeared the eggs had frozen on contact – the drips hanging like little slimy eggcicles.

Little did the egg perpetrators know that their vandalism venture didn’t faze me much. I’m not one who is too concerned about my car. As long as it gets me where I’m going, that’s all that matters. As far as I was concerned, the egg could stay on the car until it melted off in the spring.

But when I posted my unfortunate egging incident on my Facebook wall, I was given advice to the contrary from several friends.

“Hurry and wash it or you’ll have permanent spots eggsactly where they splattered your car,” Deb advised.

“Get it off ASAP!” Patty insisted.

“That crap will eat right through the paint,” Richard concurred.

I figured they must be right, but it was 20 below zero! Not the greatest conditions for a car wash. But with the gloom and doom predicted should I let the egg sit until spring, I thought I better heed their dire warnings.

The helpful young men at Mike’s Car Wash concurred that a car wash could result in frozen doors and windows. But they also agreed that it was important to get the egg off my car. Because they were having a slow day, they took pity on me and said they would take the time to open the doors and dry off each door jamb.

I have to tell you – I hate going to the car wash. It makes me nervous, I feel claustrophobic, and I always feel like I’m going to miss driving on to those narrow little tracks that propel me through the tortuous tunnel. And I was afraid that my side view mirror would fall off, as it is attached to my car with duct tape.

So I only wash my car about once a year – whether it needs it or not. And this time it did.

I pulled into the car wash and made it on the right track. The guys went to work on the egg spots with their wands. Things were good so far.

Then I had to go through the automatic part of the wash, which obviously squirts water at the car. Normally, this would be a good thing, but I have this problem with my driver’s side window. The rubber seal around the window is ripped and is hanging into the car. So when the water was aimed at that window, water came gushing into the car, soaking not only the seat, but my left leg and arm.

Smart girl that I am, the second time the water came at me, I took my gloved hand and held it up to where the rubber seal was loose. Sure, it didn’t soak my leg this time, but it completely saturated my left glove – rendering it useless in preventing the chill from the below-zero temperatures.

I finally made it through my unexpected shower, only to encounter the giant rubber strips that slap your car, followed by the big, furry rollers. Sure enough, as I peered out my drenched driver’s side window, I watched in slow motion horror as the side view mirror got looser and looser with every pass of the giant car eaters, until it was dangling precariously by one pathetically insufficient duct-tape string.

Did I mention that this all occurred on my way to a first date?

The car finally made it out of the wash, shiny clean. And voila! Not a shred of evidence of the frozen egg.

I arrived at my date a little worse for wear – my left pant leg and coat sleeve drenched, my left hand half frozen and immobile, my side mirror hanging loosely from the car, and the front door propped open so it wouldn’t freeze shut.

I sure know how to make a good first impression on a first date.

But I just had to laugh about it. Otherwise, it would have just been…

Eggasperating.

Tags: jo colvin, life, columns, egged, car