Car wash follies.






Car wash follies.



It seemed like a good idea at the time. Newly (and consciously) coupled, we needed to be comfortable driving each other’s cars. What better plan than to drive the vehicles to the car wash, followed by a leisurely lunch at Southampton’s San Ambrous?

So we set out from Amagansett, she in my Mercedes, and I in her Range Rover. Emerging from the car wash forty-five minutes later, I can't spot my Mercedes. Surely the smaller car would be finished first? I park on the shoulder of Route 27 and wait for my car to emerge. Five minutes pass before my cell phone rings. This dialogue ensues:

SHE: Where are you?
ME: Waiting for you to come out of the car wash.
SHE: I’m out. I’m parked on the Southampton road. I’ll wait for you on the shoulder.

I gun the eight cylinders and hang a right towards Southampton. After a few minutes, I spot her glossy gray hair some hundred yards ahead. She waves and eases into the traffic. I follow her. In less than a minute, I realize I must have lost her. There’s no Mercedes convertible in the knot of cars ahead.

Arriving at the outskirts of Southampton, I parallel park the big vehicle and call her. More dialogue:

ME: Where are you?
SHE: I’m in the village parking lot. Where are you?
ME: Parked on the street just outside town.
SHE: Well, what are you waiting for? Drive in and go straight to the village parking lot; you’ll see a sign. I’ll meet you there.  

I work my way out of the parking spot and drive into the town. Before I can turn into the parking lot, I see her waving me towards an empty parking space on Main Street. I slide the Range Rover in, lock it, and we head for lunch at San Ambrous. It turns out to be a long lunch, enlivened by a glass of wine, and then we window shop for a while to let the alcohol neutralize.

ME: ’So, should we head back?’
SHE: ‘Guess so. I have an appointment in East Hampton, so why don’t you keep my car and I will bring yours to your place and we can swap them there’. 
ME: ‘Sounds like a plan’. We part, she to the parking lot, me to my spot on main street.

Forty-five minutes later and four hours since we left the car wash, I swing into my Amagansett driveway.

My cell phone rings.

SOME GUY: ‘Southampton Car Wash here. Sir, when are you coming to collect your car?’
ME: ‘Excuse me?’
GUY: ‘Your convertible? It needs to be picked up. You took the wrong Mercedes’.

Blood leaves my body. 

ME: ‘I’m on my way. How did you get my cell number?’
GUY: 'We rang the cops. They ran the plates. Your name popped up’.
ME: ‘Great, so now I’m on the terrorist watch list. And where’s the other car?’
GUY: ‘You mean the one that’s missing? You have it, right?'’.
ME: ‘Not exactly. But I think I know where it might be’.
GUY: ‘Well, sir, I suggest you bring it back as soon as possible. We have a very unhappy customer here who’s been waiting nearly five hours for his vehicle’.

I call her.

ME: ‘Where are you?’
SHE: ‘At White’s Pharmacy. Why?’
ME: ‘You drove away with the wrong car. Don’t move. I’m on my way.’

At the East Hampton parking lot, I can see it’s a Mercedes but it’s not my Mercedes.

SHE: ‘But it’s a Mercedes’ she says.
ME: 'Yes, that much is true but it’s blue, not gray and it’s a sedan, not a convertible. All I could see when you waved at me was your hair, not the color of the car’.
SHE: ‘Well, that’s unfortunate’.

I leave her with her Range Rover and drive the blue Mercedes to the car wash. On the way, I re-fuel it.

I hand the keys to the car’s visibly irritated owner. He avoids eye contact.

HIM: 'Is it driving okay?’ I take this as a man-to-man question.
ME: ‘Well, actually it’s pulling a bit to the left’.
HIM: What! It wasn’t doing that this morning. I’m going to drive it around the block. I’ll be back if there’s a problem’.

He doesn’t return.

For weeks afterwards, the car wash staff call out the same greeting: ‘Hey, here’s the guy who drove off with another guy’s car!' I never bother to correct them on the details. They're too busy laughing.

Three years later, we’re still together.

©bjbeachhampton@gmail.com
Amagansett, NY 11930.
December 2014.

This story first appeared in the East Hampton Star.

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