A bum gave me sympathy at the $2.00 carwash.

You know the carwash on N.E. 2nd (or 1st?) Avenue and like 24th street? I'm doing a terrible job of explaining where it is, but it's above Food Town and below Van Orsdel Crematory, on that charming stretch of road. (Seriously. I like it. Urban decay is my thing.)

Well, catty-corner to the closed-down Chevron, there's a DO IT YOURSELF CARWASH! Those places have always fascinated me. "You wash your car, YOURSELF?! There? Not in your DRIVEWAY? That's crazy!"

I have driven past it forever wanting to go, and tonight I fulfilled my wish.

It's $2.00; you feed the munnies into a machine, that gives you tokens that you put into another machine in a carport, and then you can PRESSURE WASH YOUR CAR YOURSELF!

This would be amazing - in theory - incredible. Except I made a couple rookie mistakes: 1) prewash; 2) I DIDN'T PUT ENOUGH MONEY IN THE MACHINE. I don't know what I thought I was going to get for $2.00, but I imagined SURELY it would be more than 2 minutes of washtime. By starting out with the dribbling pre-wash, I cut down on my time with the forceful hose...

Because when I moved to that section of the wash (high-pressure, after the prewash) it was... I... I creamed my jeans.

I creamed my jeans, until the machine beeped, after what felt like a very short time of running around my car, giggling, and spraying high-pressure water, and exclaiming that I was going to come to this place, "EVERY NIGHT!"

I figured the beeping meant that it was time for Gael to push a new button - maybe "RINSE!" or "BLUE FOAM!"

The beeping actually meant that the wash was going off. Like... shutting down. Right then.

While my car was covered in soap.

And I only had a buck more on me.

And Gael had none.

"Whatever," thought I, "I'll just get another dollar token, and buy meself a rinse!"

About this time, a crazy, dreadlocked crack-bum started singing at me. I don't know why he went for the short bearded Jew hastily feeding his last dollar into the Token Machine and talking to his Fransh friend, buzzing around a Mercedes, instead of the car full of other guys washing their Chrysler... but lucky me.

He asked me if I had some money he could have. I showed him my now, sadly, empty money clip, but he didn't get it. And then I thought he was going to shiv Gael and me.

I pumped my last dollar token into the WashMachine.

Nothing. I needed ANOTHER TOKEN, which I did not have.

My car is covered with soap... and the machine doesn't work. I'm convinced I'm going to be killed by a smelly bum with a 40 under his arm, and Gael is laughing, which sets off the Bum who goes from mellow, but annoying, to crazy-eyes stabby.

I debated asking the bum for a dollar to distract him from killing us.

I, again, explain to him, that I just put my last dollar in the machine, I have no more money, and my car is covered with soap.

Slowly, the bum sobers up... stares at the non-functional machine (it didn't eat enough munnies!) and my dripping, soapy car, and says, "Shit! Now I see the soap! I didn't before, but now I see it! Damn."

Perfect opportunity to avoid being robbed (of what?)... NOW!

"Well, I have to go to another carwash where they take credit cards so I can wash this soap off. Have a good night," I call out as I leap into my car, and pull off...

"Great. I just got sympathy from a Bum," I sighed as I pulled away from the $2.00 carwash and towards the BP Station on Biscayne... whose carwash was out of order tonight.