Emily and the Carwash

Last Monday it snowed something like 6 inches by the time I had to leave for my first bartending class. Yes, I took a bartending class, it was discounted and promised to help me find a job later.
Anyways, the first time that it snowed, I had somewhere to be and therefore HAD to drive in it. And I did. Very very veeeerrry slowly.

So, I took that bartending class. It was taught by a guy, M, from San Jose. I didn't click with any of the kids in my class, which was too bad. It made me very very homesick. In the class there was one woman who came all the way from Rapid City, South Dakota because this was the closest place that she could take a bartending class.

I passed that class with flying colors (100.5% on the written and then I made 12 "drinks" out of colored water in 5 minutes. Not the best, but not the worst).

C and N (who are exactly who you think they are, Ari) got a dog on Saturday, which has been really exciting. She's part Manchester Terrier and part something else. She looks like a mini-doberman pinscher but she has a white patch with black spots on her chest, one of her ears is droopy, and the other is alert. She's about 10 pounds and 9 months old. Her name is Penny and she does everything 110%: running until she hits walls, jumping into things, and passing out. It's very cute but obnoxious at the end of a leash. We spend a lot of time together these days, as I am unemployed and she is a dog. We play fetch and she sits in my lap if I am sitting down, it's like having a dog/cat combo.

Today, I went to the carwash to wash my car. It was filthy and covered with chemicals that they spray on big highways to keep them from being too slippery. As I was filling it up with gas before I went through the wash, I realized that only once in my life had I ever been in a car that went through a carwash. During that one time that I went through the car wash, the driver had driven the car through the washer as it was hit with 6 foot tall scrubbers and the like.
I drove into the opening, and a sign saying "drive forward" and so I did. Then a sign saying "stop" and other saying "back up to start cycle" lit up. So I did. Then the first sign lit up, and I drove forward. Then the second signs lit up and I backed up. I repeated this cycle again and again, sometimes varying how far forward I went. Farther, less far, and each time the "stop" and back-up signs lit up. This happened about 10 times. THEN I realized that the rubber well that I kept driving over was where I was supposed to stop my front wheel, because the squirt-y mechanisms were on a track that went over the car as it stayed still. All of this would have been just frustrating and obnoxious had I been alone, but there was a woman waiting closely behind me who witnessed me drive forward, stop, and back up. Drive forward, stop, and back up. I can only imagine her in her car saying to herself "what kind of California idiot is this?" (I still have CA plates). But, now I have a squeaky clean car with a special rain-repelling coat of something on it, because I opted for the "super dog wash!" instead a wash called something along the lines of the "Joe Schmoe" because it cleaned the undercarriage and sprayed the rain-repellant.
But I have conquered the carwash. I am a better woman for it.