Free car wash

I’ve had a big adventure this past week – I’ve travelled overseas. It was just island to island (Waiheke to Auckland), but I noticed some extraordinary things. The first thing is this: Auckland, well the parts I saw, is full of big black shiny cars. In fact, most of the cars seemed shiny. The sunlight kept hitting the bumpers and glass on the cars in front of me, near blinding me, and enough to make me think Whoa what’s going on here? It then dawned on me that the cars were merely CLEAN. And clean cars shine. So, I mused, that’s where all of Auckland’s water is going? You see, on Waiheke Island, with its many unsealed roads, we don’t worry too much about washing our cars because they will only stay clean for a day or two, so what’s the point? But there is another much more important reason we don’t bother washing cars too often: water. It’s a precious commodity on an island. Auckland is just learning that it’s a precious commodity in a big city, too.

Driving along the motorway I started to feel like a grubby cousin coming to town in a beat up pickup truck. Well, my car is way nicer than that (and I speak exceptionally nicely to her now since I invested heavily in her repair and upkeep a few weeks ago).

Later on I’m zipping along Ponsonby Road, no WAIT!, you can’t exactly ZIP along Ponsonby Road as it is chocka with shiny black cars, and there’s a speed limit, so I was trawling along between traffic lights, eyes on stalks taking in all the merch and carryon, noting that some of the post-Covid  vacant shops were now home to new businesses, and it started raining. YES! Blessed rain! Great, I was getting a free car wash on Ponsonby Road, one of our city’s premier shopping and dining streets. I was very pleased. I’m not sure how the owners of said shiny black things felt about their windows and chrome getting splattered but I felt a bit more dressed up and ready to go to town after a good wash.