Sometimes in quite moments, just out of the clear blue sky, a random thought brings a memory back to life.
I just thought of my Aunt Lottie. Aunt Lottie was a tiny woman with a big laugh. She had an exasperated way of saying “Randy!” She broke it into three syllables: “RAY-AN-DEE!” She was right at five feet tall, but all five feet of her was full of a wonderful joy of life. Aunt Lottie loved to tell a story. She could tell a story like no one else. My favorite Aunt Lottie story is the car wash story. It’s a true story, just ask Uncle Randy. The first time I heard it was about five years after it happened. Uncle Randy, Aunt Lottie, Landi and I were in Lottie’s Lincoln on the way to a casino in Tunica, Mississippi for dinner. I laughed until I almost cried.
Many years ago, Uncle Randy, a North Mississippi attorney, was instrumental in the opening of the casinos in Tunica. He bought Aunt Lottie a Lincoln Continental. This automobile had every option available. It was a huge four door mansion of a car with electric windows, an electric sun roof, an electric trunk opener. It had a magnificent stereo with multiple speakers. The seats were electrically controlled, and heated. The lights came on automatically at dark, and the windshield wipers knew when it started raining and automagically started working. It had plush leather seats and very nice carpet. All this was controlled by a control panel on the arm rest on the drivers door. It was a hell of a car, and Aunt Lottie loved it.
“Bill Junior,” she began, slowly pronouncing “Be-all-June-yuh” in a North Mississippi accent dripping with kudzu and interwoven with cotton. She clearly enunciated all four syllables as if they were a single word. “That car,” (pronounced ‘cahr’) was brand (pronounced ‘bran’ No ‘d’ involved.) new! I had only had that car for about a week”, she continued, “And some dang birds poo’d on that car. Right in the middle of the hood. Why would they do that?” she’d ask, looking at me as if I was supposed to answer. Clearly, the shiny new car needed a wash.
Hernando had recently opened a fancy, new, automated car wash. Before that place was built, you either washed it by hand or went to one of those car washes with a pressurized wand that you used yourself. This was a nifty little one bay place. You pulled into the bay, inserted three quarters into the machine, and a robot circled your car for about five minutes spraying foam and hot water on the sides and top of your car while spinning soft “brushes” scrubbed your car clean. It scrubbed the sides. It scrubbed the hood. It scrubbed the top and it scrubbed the back. This was a pretty big deal for 1989 Hernando Mississippi to get a robotic car wash. Everyone who tried it said it did a really good job.
The story begins innocently enough with Aunt Lottie pulling into the car wash bay. The robot was located beside the right front fender, she recalled. She rolled her electric window down, inserted three quarters in the machine.
“Be-all-June-yuh, why, that thing, it’s a beast, it just came alive!” Aunt Lottie remembered still sounding some what shocked and alarmed. Slowly at first, and then much stronger, the robot began spraying massive amounts of hot water and foam across the hood and on to the right front fender. The spinning scrubber began to spin. Sensing water, the automatic windshield wipers sprung into action, but only for a second. Each wiper was, one at a time, removed from the car by the tentacles of the spinning scrubber. The mechanical marvel slowly began it’s cleansing trek toward the back of the car, the spinning soft brush tighly gripping the windshield wipers that clanged loudly against the side of the car with each revolution of the brush.
“I mashed the button to roll the window up,” Aunt Lottie recounted, “But, Be-all-June-yuh, that’s not what happened at all.”
It appears that Aunt Lottie, in her haste, had pushed the wrong button. Instead of the driver’s window going up, the passenger side window now went down.
The robot, slowly circling the car, was now a spinning, erupting volcano of foam and water. Reacting quickly, Aunt Lottie pushed another button hoping to roll the window up.
“And Be-all June-yuh, all of a sudden, water and soap started coming down on me,” Aunt Lottie explained. Unfortunately, instead of closing the window, the button she had pushed had opened the sun roof. What followed can only be described as a descent into utter, blind panic.
In a furious hurricane of water and foam, Aunt Lottie desperately pressed button after button in a futile attempt to close the windows as the robot slowly circled, flogging the brand new Lincoln with the windshield wipers and spraying water and foam in all window openings. Aunt Lottie raced to get the window closed before the robot arrived at her open window on the drivers side of the car. Despite her best efforts, (she did, after all, press every button in the car) she couldn’t get the window closed. Worse yet, the totality of her efforts resulted in opening not only every window the car had, but also opened the sun roof and the trunk lid. Like the Indians circling Custer at Little Big Horn, the erupting robot slowly circled the car filling it with water and foam.
To hear Aunt Lottie tell it, the five minute wash turned into a watery, foamy fight for dear life itself.
It is very likely that Aunt Lottie never again washed her car.
Dear Aunt Lottie passed from this Earth in January of 2025. She was the sweetest little lady you could ever imagine. I would truly love to hear her say “Bill Junior” with all four syllables or “Randy” with it’s three again. I wish she could tell that story just one more time. Every time she told it, it got better and better. I think she really loved telling that story. I know that everyone who ever heard that story loved it, too. Well, Uncle Randy, probably didn’t enjoy the story much, but he truly and deeply loved my dear Aunt Lottie, so it was all OK.