{"id":29,"date":"2002-08-29T08:30:40","date_gmt":"2002-08-29T08:30:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/plan.thewoottons.com\/?p=29"},"modified":"2002-08-29T08:30:40","modified_gmt":"2002-08-29T08:30:40","slug":"in-need-of-a-hand-job","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/plan.thewoottons.com\/?p=29","title":{"rendered":"In Need of a Hand Job"},"content":{"rendered":"

I love
\ndroughts<\/a>.
\nDon’t get me wrong. I understand they are bad for the
\nenvironment. I know the farmers and plant life of the world need water to
\nfall from the sky. I’m aware that it that it throws a bit of a wrench into
\nthe normal workings of the world. But rain has never been my thing,
\nparticularly in the summer.<\/p>\n

No rain means I rarely wash my car. No rain means my
\ngrass doesn’t grow; my lawn mower is free to sulk in the shed.
\nNo rain means I awaken to the sun in the sky,
\nnary a cloud in sight. No rain means weather suited for
\nsoftball and picnics.<\/p>\n

But this is getting out of hand.<\/p>\n

The grass in my yard cries out like a bowl of
\nCap’n Crunch<\/a>
\n when I walk upon it.
\nThe trees in the yard have given up hope, wilting under the pressure and
\noften tossing their leaves to the ground in protest.
\nWater restrictions<\/a>
\nare getting tighter and tighter, halting me from saving my poor
\nold grass and, even worse, giving my car the proper cleaning that it deserves.<\/p>\n

Keeping my car clean is a bit of an obsession;
\nan obsession that I started long ago. My first car, a 1984 Ford Escort was
\nprobably the cleanest 1984 Ford Escort on earth. It was clean inside and
\nout. (Has anyone else seen a clean 1984 Ford Escort? What about a brown one
\nin 1992?)
\nIt became quite a badge of honor for me and an eventual annoyance for
\nmy wife (who wants a hubby that critiques their car’s cleanliness every
\ntime they enter it?).<\/p>\n

The habit of keeping my car spic and spam continued through the years and
\na second car. Not too long ago I purchased a
\nnew vehicle, a 1998 Pontiac
\nTrans Am<\/a>
\n(it is still new to me). The cleaning gods rejoiced.<\/p>\n

I can’t say I’ve kept it as clean as I like. The problem with a reasonably
\nexpensive car is that you need a job to pay for it. Factor in a house and
\na wife and I just don’t have the time to spend with it that I did.
\nI have my lazy moments, but by and large the sports car has looked sporty
\nmore often than not.<\/p>\n

Our current drought has thrown its own tool into my normal cleaning plans.
\nNo longer can I lovingly caress my white little vehicle back to health with
\na shammy. No longer can I clean every crease and crevice. I’m relegated
\nto the community car wash, where even a manual wash cannot get the
\nTrans Am shine to my satisfaction.<\/p>\n

I suppose that other people worry about important things, like the reservoirs
\nbeing low or keeping the greens green. But the
\nrain<\/a>
\nof today and yesterday has started a bit of musing.
\nI’ve got to get out there and wash that car. It’s filthy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I love droughts. Don’t get me wrong. I understand they are bad for the environment. I know the farmers and plant life of the world need water to fall from the sky. I’m aware that it that it throws a bit of a wrench into the normal workings of the world. But rain has never […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/plan.thewoottons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/plan.thewoottons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/plan.thewoottons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/plan.thewoottons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/plan.thewoottons.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/plan.thewoottons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/plan.thewoottons.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/plan.thewoottons.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/plan.thewoottons.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}