Not just because the monthly fee
is automatically snatched from my
checking account, and not simply
because a clean car runs better,
as my father used to say, and not
because it’s easy to drive through,
the driver’s front tire grabbed
by the conveyer, the car and I
pulled through the deluge,
which still makes me grin, as it did
when, in our youth, Dad found
the rare car wash that allowed
us to ride inside, the old Chevy
morphing into a spaceship,
my sister and I watching the deep
blues and fiery reds shimmy down
the windows like liquid star trails,
Dad echoing our ooh’s and ahh’s
as we three were transported
through the magic tunnel.
“Good as Disneyland, huh?”
he’d say, and we, who had
begun our lives an orange grove
away from the Magic Kingdom
had to admit that it was
pretty darn close. I still love
the car wash blues, baptizing
the four wheels that carry me
everywhere, the holy water of suds,
the benediction of the rinse
and the blesséd flap-flap of
lasagna-shaped chamois riding
the windshield. Not to mention
the miracle of emerging clean
and, with luck, a space to sidle
into where a long-nosed nozzle
will suck up the schmutz
on the floor mats, where a
green towel can wipe away
all manner of sins on windows,
Father grinning from his spot
in the firmament,
the car purring like a happy
cat soaking up the attention,
loving all that love.
Güd wrtr 
Your poem made me laugh, especially because it brought back a memory. Owning a business, I was a frequent visitor to our local automated car wash, primarily because I took customers around a lot and needed my transportation to be not just shiny and clean, but spit-polished. Gotta impress those that pay the bills. At the end of one particular long day, I decided to run by the Cahaba Falls, my favorite flivver washeteria.
At the beginning, the machinery spritzes on this shaving-cream-like foam that smells of mint and almond extract, and permeates the vehicle through the air conditioner vents in the most pleasant way. Then, as you said in your poem, the shimmying of all the nozzles and dangly cloths started, rocking the car gently. The next thing I know, I’m startled by a horn honking behind me. Throughout the entire cleaning process, I had fallen asleep to the gentle ministrations of the carwash robot, which kindly pushed me out into the parking lot when he/she/it was done! The car was dead stopped on the pavement, in neutral, blocking the customer behind me. To this day, I fight sleep any time I visit any car wash, even when I’m well rested.
Love this story, Terry! I, too, fall under the soporific (such a great words… we need to use that more often!) effects of the car wash. I love that it still happens for you!