Washing the Car

I washed the car this afternoon, which I rarely do. I wash the car when it needs it, when the accumulation of crud and debris threatens its aerodynamic characteristics. I sometimes joke that I wash it every year, "whether it needs it or not." This is a true description of frequency, but not motive. If it didn't need it, I wouldn't wash it.

While I was engaged in this work it occurred to me that it is quite possible that, since we are in a drought year, someone could be driving by might become indignant about my wasting of water. They might make the assumption that I do this every weekend, as some do. They might wag a finger of approbation.

The thing I was thinking about as I scraped a years worth of bugs from the front grill is that this hypothetical finger wagger is right in the general case. I would agree with him or her. One should not waste water if you live in the semi-desert that is California. You should not do so, especially in a drought year. Its socially irresponsible. Its bad for the environment. Washing cars is one of the ways people waste water. Its just that the wagger's finger might be misdirected in my case.

People make errors of particularization all the time, of course. It probably happens more these days. Our technology permits more and more context free encounters. George W. S. Trow wrote about it in the sixties in Within the Context of No Context. We curse each other on the freeway because of a too sudden stop or a missing signal. This is an example of a great sin: people don't signal as they should. We shake our fist because we have found a sinner. The sinner. But we have never met the person in this car in front of. We don't know what kind of day they are having. We don't know if failure to signal is a chronic problem or an aberration. We have a moral makeup meant to protect the cohesiveness of a tribal village. It loses its bearings in the anonymity of modern life.

- J