Drive

The grueling winter of 2018 still lingers as the spring equinox approaches. The roads are slushy and slick with grains of salt lurking in the cracks of the pavement. In Thornwood, New York, the forecast for the week was unpromising. No sunshine, more snow, and colder temperatures. This time of year means business for car wash companies. Salt provides traction for imminent dangers of ice on the roads, but through repeated exposure, it can cause rust to form on a vehicle. It is necessary for weekly sprays of the undercarriage to prevent the deterioration of one’s vehicle. Any bit of sunshine or clear skies with dry roads, attract and make people swarm car washes. With all these people rushing to wash their vehicles I hope to encounter many different scenarios. I want to how people act when rushed, or if they decide to talk to the people in front of them or not. I assume there will be an equal amount of both women and men present. When I think of people who go to the car wash, I think of a range of ages, with people of many different professions. I see, the rushed housewife with three kids in the car gawking at the soap streaming down the window, or the young guy taking forever to get every inch of his car cleaned. People value their cars as a representation of who they are a person. Aesthetics, practicality, and cost all determine one's preferences on their vehicle. Culturally, as the world becomes technologically advanced, the shift of people becoming more dependent on materialism is evident. Transportation is one of these instances.

My particular interest to focus my attention on the businesses of car washes is because of how much I am dependent on a car myself. I am a college student and live two hours away from home. As a freshman on campus, I am not allowed a car. This absence of freedom to come and go as I please has negatively impacted my school year. I miss the summer days of driving windows down in my Mazda-3 speeding up through puddles and being as carefree as I wanted. The carwash was the place where I made pit stops to take responsibility for that something I owned. I found myself drifting to what others were thinking of me, and hoping to be one step closer to being treated as an adult. I felt the car wash was the place for proving a person's responsibility of ownership. 

I believe cars are related to one’s reputation. People obsess on how they are presented in society. I hope I can make assumptions about the car wash’s impact on social interaction with my observations. Closest to my college is the Thornwood Car Wash. It is in the middle of town, and convenient for cars to come and go.