Car Wash!

Photo Credit: Adam Christopherson

We are sitting in the front seat of the car, engine running, watching the flurry ahead of us. A dozen kids and a few adults lift sopping sponges from soapy buckets and attack the car in front of us. A boy with a fresh mohawk takes a long handled brush to the tires. His recently shaved head is pale compared to his neck. A youngster sporting a soap beard looks up at me and grins.

Just feet away from my side of the car stands a man holding a hose. We quickly roll up our windows and he begins to spray until the car is thoroughly doused. As he steps forward to hose down the car ahead of us, those dozen kids and more descend on us, their rags and sponges and brushes finding plenty of dust to demolish.

I feel claustrophobic, children's faces peering through every window of the car. I think for a moment that I am in a drive-through car wash and all those scrubbers oscillating from the ceiling have turned into little people.

One girl, barely tall enough to see over the hood, will surely rub a hole in the car with her rapt attention to a single spot on the front left side.

Someone gives the signal for us to move forward and the children peel off to blitz the car behind us. We're moved into a bay for a spray-down, and, just like that, one more car has made it through the gauntlet of the Stanwood Youth Football car wash.

As we pull away, a jeep covered with an inch of mud arrives. Everybody cheers!

With the kind of teamwork we witnessed on the car wash field, I predict these football players will have a winning year!

Photo Credit: Adam Christopherson

(Photos courtesy of Stanwood Youth Football. To see more, check out this link.)