Saturday, April 9, 2011

Carwash

Kathy and I had a bit of bother today when we took our car to the carwash.

Just to set the scene, here's a photo that I took of the carwash in operation on another car while we were waiting our turn.


Our problem was with the green-faced box which you can see fixed to the wall on the left. It has a keyboard on its facia which enables a customer to enter a six-digit password. This starts the carwash. Simple!

We'd been given our six-digit password on a printed receipt when we had paid for the carwash.


Well, as soon as we had parked the car inside the carwash, Kathy whizzed off with the receipt to enter the password into the box on the wall, while I did mundane stuff like checking that all the windows were closed, unscrewing the car radio aerial, and pushing the wing mirrors in.

When I joined her, Kathy was still busily typing the password into the box on the wall. "It's not working!" she exclaimed,"And I've tried ten times!"

So I had a go. I entered the password. And nothing happened. And I tried again, and again, and again, with no result. A queue of cars was building up in the waiting area behind us, and some of the drivers started honking impatiently.

Time was ticking on, and we had an appointment to keep. So we decided to leave the carwash and return again tomorrow.

It was while we were waiting at the exit to turn into a busy road that I glanced into the rear view mirror. And I could see the carwash operating perfectly normally on the next car in.

I wonder why it wouldn't work for us? Have you had a similar experience? We'll try again tomorrow, but in the meantime, we'll be interested in your ideas!

:-)

9 comments:

Expat said...

The other cars went through but you couldn't? It's a topsy turvy old world, CI.

Dolores Doolittle said...

Fiendish machine! But your password was surely a row of 69's, CI - for your puzzles, that's always the answer, isn't it?!

Good luck tomorrow, or you may have to find small child with bucket!

Canary Islander said...

You are so right, Expat. But we'll find a way to turn things around.
:-)

Canary Islander said...

Thanks Dolores! Life is full of these ups and downs, isn't it?
:-)

Expat said...

I do my best thinking standing on my head, CI.

Canary Islander said...

That's one way, Expat. But why not just turn things over in your mind?
:-)

JW10 said...

I don't trust those fancy car wash machines, CI, better off with elbow grease and a good sponge.

Your ticket, is that a palindromic number by any chance? No wonder the machine was on the blink. It didn't know if you were coming or going.

Expat said...

Come on...you can get to the bottom of this.

Canary Islander said...

JW - when the motorists behind me got angry, I thought my number was up.
:-)