The Cure Is Hairier Than The Disease

The lifting of certain water restrictions lately have revealed the true extent of my laziness.

It became possible again recently to wash your car in Sydney without being thrown into gaol by the water police. Not owning a garden, I’m not entirely aware of what the water restrictions were, or what they have become. It is of only mild interest to me. Sort of like the economy. It’s there, but, well, isn’t there something more interesting to look at?

But I was aware of a whole bunch of cars suddenly looking a lot better than my two roving compost heaps.

In general, I don’t wash cars. I’ll run them through something, or by someone, or park them somewhere and hope to have it stolen so I can get another one if it’s become critical, but I hate washing them. It’s a labour of lost love.

For a while there, I was in good company. We were all driving around in righteously, environmentally sound filthy vee-hickles. The second the restrictions were lifted, though, I noted that I was the only one who continued to carry the empty watering-can of eco-dirtiness.

Sydney turned on one of its typically hysterical weather changes last night, and we went from a calm, hot muggy day to being blasted by an electrical thunderstorm and sheets of water that looked more like a vertical ocean than rain.

I was looking at the rain, thinking about a couple of the more egregious pieces of ibis poo currently on the white car and decided to swing into action (when an ibis empties itself on your wheels, it’s like someone has wrung out a toddler with a bad diet; if they did it from a height, it would dent the panel work).

Grabbing an umbrella and the microfibre eco-glove we use in the bathroom, I ran out to the car and started scrubbing.

Sure, I was standing there in an electrical storm, rubbing a large piece of metal with an entirely synthetic cloth and holding another metal shaft (umbrella) proudly in the air, but ibis poo can drive you to extreme lengths. It kills bats, for god’s sake!

Here’s where I give away a detail of Emergency Contact's appearance and some of our other domestic challenges.

I stood back to admire my sparkling ute, with the sun and the rain all glinting and pelting off it, and it didn’t.

It is now entirely covered in long, red hairs. They really stand out on white paintwork, too.