Have you ever been turned away from a car wash because your car was just too filthy?

Recently, I was. An employee of a certain car wash along Shermans Creek (which shall go nameless) took one look at my mud-caked Toyota Tacoma and shook his head. “You’ve been off-roading,” he said.

This was technically true. I had driven the Tacoma onto one of our fields. But it was for a noble cause, freeing the Hustler mower that I’d managed to get stuck in the mud. The fact that I’d proceeded to get the Tacoma stuck in the mud was neither here nor there, but it hadn’t been any fun. Actually, it was pretty humiliating. I didn’t think the experience qualified as “off-roading,” since there hadn’t been any of the whooping, hollering, scantily clad thrills you see in the ads for energy drinks.

“Not really off-roading,” I said. “I got stuck in the mud. And now I’ve got an insane shimmy.”

That part was true, too. The drive from St. Peter’s Church road to this nameless car wash had taken hours. At least, that’s how long it seemed, since I couldn’t really push the Tacoma past thirty without being shaken so hard I thought my kidneys were going to pop.

The car wash attendant was unmoved. “We have a water reclamation system here,” he said. “It can’t take that kind of mud.”

It was one of those explanations where half of you, the thoughtful half, says, “Water reclamation. Good idea! Keep that dirty water out of the creek.” While the other half of you, the caveman half, is saying, “Truck dirty. Needs wash. Wash man bad. Use bad man’s hair piece to wipe tires.”

Unfortunately for my poor truck, the thoughtful half won out.

So I bounced along home, thinking about the unusual kindness of my neighbors around St. Peter’s Church road, especially the neighbor, let’s call him Buddy, who’d saved my bacon with his big old tractor.

Buddy works as an electrical engineer by day, but has never lost touch with his agrarian roots. His tractor is his pride and joy. And I have to admit to a certain amount of joy myself  when I saw those enormous chained wheels rolling down our shared shale driveway. We laughed at the sight of my mired vehicles. “Never seen the ground so soft,” he said. We were both aware of how merciful that sounded. With the merest fumble-fingered help from me, he freed the truck and the mower, then waved as he rode the tractor back up the road. Like it was no big deal.

It was the kind of help I’ve come to expect from the good people of Perry County.
Where I come from, a hundred miles or so to the south, a person asking for help is often seen as weak, a mark, someone to take advantage of. Especially where it involves cars, plumbing, or orthodontia.

When I got home from the car wash, I crawled under the Tacoma with a hose and a stick and spent about an hour of quality time in close quarters with steel, spray, and mud.

It didn’t work. Out on the road, the truck still bucked like a bull with cinched…parts. I was starting to feel pretty low.

At that point, my wife, who was happily planting some flowers in the garden, offered to take a crack at it.

“Oh, no,” I said, “It’s nasty work.”

“I’m up for it,” she said.

“It’s really muddy and disgusting,” I said.

“That’s okay,” she said. “I’m dirty anyway.”

So she wiggled under the truck with a hose. And came out a while later nicely speckled with mud.

I took the truck for a test drive. Smooth sailing, even at highway speed. I made a beeline for her when I got back. “You fixed my truck!” I said.

“I’m glad,” she said, accepting a big kiss with her usual grace.

Her father likes to talk about “the kind of help that helping’s all about,” a phrase which sounds like it belongs in a sermon, but which was actually lifted from a Marlo Thomas album from the early 70s.

It’s not always easy to accept a helping hand. But sometimes, accept it, we must.

Lesson learned. Next time, I’ll take a higher line with the mower.

This column was published in the Perry Co Times on 30 April 2009

For more information, please contact Mr. Olshan at writing@matthewolshan.com