Our colleague Miriam Gottfried never goes to the car wash.

Do you own a car?

No, I own a Vespa, which I would not recommend taking through a car wash.

But Miriam does have some memories of going to the car wash as a kid.

I actually have a friend who when he was a kid, he wanted to go to the car wash every year

for his birthday.

And so we would go to the car wash first birthday.

What was that like?

You know, it's so fun.

You get to like line up your wheel onto the conveyor and then you put it in neutral and

you just kind of like let it go through and then you get to watch all the brushes sweeping

over the window and you come out clean.

In those days, car washes were different.

She remembers her parents going inside to pay a cashier.

And after they'd head out of the car wash, the swarm of employees would drive the car

and wax it.

But now you pay by sticking your car in a machine.

You pay for whichever type of wash you want.

You make a selection.

The gate opens.

You drive up.

There's one person standing there who gives you the thumbs up when you're ready to go

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