I can’t help it …

Car washes freak me out. Well, not so much the car-washing, but aligning my tire to roll onto that clunky metal track that's supposed to pull the car through the car wash. I'm always worried I'm going to get it wrong. What if I miss? What if I overshoot the guy's directional thumb by six inches and wedge my tire somewhere it doesn't belong? Or, even more scary, what if I get it close enough only to discover halfway through the process that I was actually teetering precariously on the edge of destruction? BOOM there I go, off the side of the track, forever stuck between the slappy waving rags and the hot wax spray. My god, it's horrifying. 

This is why I typically roll around town in a car of a nondescript color. Not entirely true, I suppose. The color of my car quite often fits one description: dirty. But last week the sun was shining, the birds were singing and the grunge of my car became more troublesome than the fear of demise at the hands of the maniacal mechanical track system at the Mister Car Wash so I ignored my anxiety and rolled in.  

I handed over my cash to the nice girl at the pay station and maybe because it was my lucky day, maybe because she noticed the manic glaze in my eyes, or maybe because it's her job to do so, she offered me a free car wash in exchange for my email address. What? Free stuff? Talk about a brilliant distraction tactic. I was halfway through the bubbling foam before I even thought about the prospect of being yanked off track and smashed to bits by the sweeping spraying thingies.

Car washes still freak me out. But not so much as wasting a free car wash coupon.

Face your fears at Mister Car Wash at one of 3 Spokane locations, North Division, on Pines and just north of downtown. I mean, really, what's the worst that could happen?