I am playing the slots at my local car wash. A single turn comes with each purchase, and now apples, bananas, lemons, oranges and cherries are zipping up and down on the touch screen next to my car window. And just like Charlie Brown has faith that he will kick the football this time — that Lucy won’t dare rip it away like she always does — I have faith that three of the same fruit will line up in a row and I will win a free car wash.
At the same moment Mr. Brown is kicking empty air and falling onto his back, the message “YOU LOSE!” flashes across the screen and an ugly electronic melody, written in the key of L for “LOSER,” gurgles from a small speaker.
I slowly limp my car into the oncoming hurricane and instinctively duck as a strip of soapy foam lashes against my windshield. Behind me a door comes down, trapping me inside. Gray brushes and black rollers come alive and prepare to get down to business.
From within my car’s dry interior, I ponder the car wash business model that leaves indelible dirt and smears along the underside of my self-esteem every time I get a car wash.
But the funny thing is, all these years of losing at car wash slots haven’t made me want to get my car cleaned somewhere else. No, instead I continue to believe in a beautiful, irrational thought. If I keep playing, someday I’m bound to strike it big!
I am so certain of this that it takes a lot of self-will not to go fill a bucket with quarters and come back and mindlessly deposit coin after coin into the credit card reader.
During the application of hot wax, I get a dose of common sense and see that playing car wash slots could be a gateway to other forms of gambling — like church bingo. For “research purposes only,” I pick up my phone and search for “church bingo near me,” but am disappointed to discover I have no cell service while my car is being scrubbed.
The final rinse cycle ends and a fluorescent, blinking sign tells me to slowly pull ahead and dry off underneath the warm allure of a gigantic car dryer. Wallowing in its heat and the removal of unsightly rinse spots, I feel the loving pull of the car wash slot screen behind me and form a cunning plan to take my wife’s car to work the following day.
I will offer the excuse that even though it is July, I am worried about the corrosive effects of winter road salt on the undercarriage and I know a good car wash in town … etc., etc.
I depart the car wash but become awash in feelings of guilt. Who am I becoming? Will I next invent an excuse to put my children’s bicycles through the wringer just so I can play the slot machine?
***
As I put some distance between me and the car wash, I do some serious introspection. I admit to myself that what I love about playing the slots comes down to the moment when the fruits that live in a slot machine rush by and then halt-halt-halt-haltingly come to rest.
What to compare it to so you will understand?
It’s that eternity when the baseball is between the pitcher’s mound and the batter’s box and the game has neither been won nor lost.
I guess it’s what Charlie Brown must feel when he stretches out his leg and believes that this time — finally — he is going to make the football fly.
