A boy, his kryptonite and the conveyor belt

If you're new to the hive, you should know that I am a geek.  A dork.  Goofy as hell.  I make a lot of references to geeky things, and this may have happened last Halloween.


Batman, the little one in the front, is the daredevil of the family.  Tiny Evel Knievel, he is.

The kid is literally afraid of nothing.  He is pretty sure that he's at least twice his actual size.  I've found him on top of the refrigerator fairly recently.  He routinely climbs the outside of the banister. He'll jump off of just about anything.  He was riding a two wheeler bike before two and got in trouble for doing flips off the side of the pool last year during swimming lessons.

If you ask him, he'd probably tell you that he is actually Batman.

His goal in life, right now, is to win American Ninja Warrior.  He has an obstacle course he runs in the house, scaling the railing of the stairs to finish.

He holds the tarantula at the museum here locally, he roars at the lions at the zoo.  He was mad that he was too small to go on the good rides at Disneyland.

Fearless.

Except for one thing.

He has something that we refer here to as his kryptonite, and it's something I would have never expected a kid like him to be afraid of.

Car washes.

He absolutely is terrified of the car wash.  He hyperventilates when we get near one, crying hysterically.  He has a designated face of terror reserved only for the moments when someone mentions how dirty the car is getting.  He cringes every time I get gas at a station that has a car wash.

I have no idea why or when this started, but it was getting really severe.  I think it's a claustrophobia thing.  My grandmother was claustrophobic, and I remember it well.  She was afraid of the car wash too.  She used to close her eyes, turn up the radio loud and sing the whole way through.

He comes by it honestly.

Since he's with me all the time these days because of the diabetes thing right now, I don't have time to get the car washed when he's at school.  So, for months and months and months, I didn't get the car washed.

It got dirtier and dirtier.

We've gone through the entire winter season without a car wash, because this kid's mom didn't want to torture him.  Three months or more of dirt, road grime, mag chloride, splashback, half assed attempts at cleaning windows....that bad. It was all well and good until the oldest wrote SUCK IT on the back window.

Superman messed with Batman.

Turd.

I knew then that it was time, we had no choice, the car needed washed.  I'm not driving around with SUCK IT on the back window.

There is a new car wash on the other side of town with clear glass sides, I thought maybe we'd give it a go.  I was getting desperate.

We pulled up to the entrance and little boy started breathing faster.  He was fidgeting in his seat.  Once we were on the conveyor belt and he realized he could see, he started laughing.

Maniacally, of course.

When we pulled out, he was pumping his fists in the air and carrying on about how awesome the car wash was.  Ran home to tell Daddy right away that he went to the car wash.

Conquering fears, we are.

I forgot what my van looked like clean.  I have to get used to what it is supposed to look like again.


Take that, General Zod.