The hose was turned on at 5:15p. We washed with Dawn and dried, stripped the entire car by hand with claybar (I dropped my claybar on the driveway already and had to toss it :(), washed off the claybar residue with the Zaino carwash. It was 6pm at that time. Not bad. Now for the polish. 2 ounces of Z2 polish, 5 drops of ZFX accelerator, shake shake shake. The application wasn’t too bad, but it was getting dark outside. After we waited 30 minutes for the first coat of polish to dry, it was dark enough that we couldn’t tell how much wax we were removing. The second layer of polish would have to be applied in the garage. But first we sprayed on and wiped off some Z7, which is supposed to deepen the shine in between coats of polish, and repel dust and has SPF 40 sunscreen (stronger than the stuff I put on my flesh). Then James moved both Mercedes (Mercedi?) out of the garage and I parked my little Lexus in there so we could see in the light. (I felt bad that the Mercedeses were in the street getting sprinkled on with the neighbors’ sprinklers while my car was being primped in the garage.) We actually ran out of mixed polish and had to mix another batch. With the 2nd coat of polish applied, we went out for sushi while it dried. It was my small payment for his slave labor. Then we came back and removed the polish, and it was still too dark to see detail on the side of the car. I had to use a flashlight. However, at one point James tossed a towel on the hood of the car and it glided across the hood like figure skaters on ice. I couldn’t even lean on the car with a towel because I’d slip right off. We finished off with the Z7 spray, James did my tires and windows and we were done at, oh, 10:30p. So of course I opted to skip the 3rd coat of polish. “And you’ll have to do this again twice a year,” he said. I really don’t know at this point whether I would.

I’d forgotten my camera. James ran in and got his, however, and took a few “before” shots. The “after” shots were probably bad, since it was pitch dark by then and altho the flash went off, he said the photos didn’t come out. I’ll tell ya where the camera DID come in handy. There’s no light that comes on in my trunk when I open it, but there is a light switch on the inside. James said, “You have to manually turn the light on every time? That’s weird.” But the light doesn’t turn off on its own when I close the trunk. We bent our heads down and I slowly closed the trunk with the light on. The light was still on…still on…still on… And then James said, “Oh, I know how we can tell if the light turns off!” He put his camera on video record mode, put it in my trunk facing up to the light. I closed the trunk. I opened the trunk. He pulled the camera out and we eagerly watched the playback. You hear him say, “Here we go. Okay, close it,” you hear him laughing at my saying how overtechnologized we are in this generation, you hear a thunk as the trunk closes and the light goes dark. “Oh! It DOES turn off!” we said. “There you go,” said James proudly. And I was gonna do it the prehistoric way, of opening the slot between the trunk and the back seat so I could look in from the back seat with the trunk closed.

This morning I touched up around my car with the garage door up cuz I can now see the water trickle marks at the usual places around the door corners, and lemme tell ya, mirror effect! I totally saw my reflection in the car. I still haven’t seen my car in sunlight, since when I’m driving I can’t see the outside, and then I parked in the structure so it’s shady, but I can’t wait! “You’re gonna be one of those people that are like, ‘DON’T TOUCH MY CAR! YOU’RE GONNA LEAVE FINGERPRINTS!’ ” James said. I think he’s right.

Oh, and the weather reports say rain tomorrow and Thursday. Of course. But I get to see how the beading effect works!

How long is this post on washing my car?! I said to James mid-project yesterday that I felt like such a loser for spending this many hours on a car in the evening, but that I felt better when I realized James is spending the same number of hours on a car, and it’s not even his car! HAHAHA! What a good friend.

Oh my gawd! Embedded videos work! Now you can see and hear our idiocy!