The Perception of Perfection
on January 18, 2012
Emma is my Chameleon Blue 2012 Volvo C30, and she’s the closest thing I have to a girlfriend right now. It’s pretty ideal, really: wherever I want to go, she just comes along without complaining. In return, I spend hours—that’s right, hours—every week keeping her clean and shiny. People tell me all the time that she looks fantastic. And those lucky enough to go for a ride comment on her inner beauty as well. That’s good and all, but what I really like is that she’s technical and aggressive; she pushes my limits almost every day, but I’m not sure that I’ve seen hers yet.
You can feel the weight of my heavy heart, then, when I tell you that she’s suffered some really bad damage. Don’t worry, I haven’t crashed her into anything (yet?) nor has anyone or thing crashed into her (yet?? OMG I AM STRESSED JUST WRITING THIS). No, it’s a more insidious kind of damage.
You see, Austin finally got some rain last month, and due to family obligations and time constraints, I had to leave for NJ for a couple of weeks without washing her first. In return, when I got back, I found some really deeply etched water spots all over her. I tried everything I had in the toolkit to get them out: two different washes, lots of quick detailer, a fresh claybar, paint conditioner, and polymer/carnauba wax, but these defects are in there. The spots are tiny, but they are everywhere—it’s as if Emma has some permanent goosebumps. Or a permanent dermatitis herpatiformis rash. That’s because Emma prefers to be gluten-free like me, you see.
But there’s a moral buried in here that’s starting to surface—can you identify it? Did you guess “perfection is a perception that is relative” or some total BS like that? Well you’re wrong. The real moral here is that car paint should not have deeply etched water spots after a few days of rain and just two freaking weeks of… of… PARKING. A friend of mine suggested that I should call up the dealership and ask them to fix the problem, and that’s what I mean to do. It’s just like how you can take your human girlfriend with daddy problems back to her dad and ask that douche of a bag to fix his daughter’s deep-seated distrust and morose outlook on life so that she can finally love and be loved like a normal per— … Oh why, I wonder where that came from… Anyway, you can tell I’m saying stuff in jest because I used the words “human girlfriend” and you know I don’t have one of those right now.
