Chapter 3: The Car Wash, and Other Interesting Events

The red digits of the clock radio beside my bed were practically shouting “9:30” at me, a ridiculously early time for me to be up on a Sunday. I heard a lot of activity outside my door and knew the rest of my family was busy getting ready for the big day. Apparently, this car wash thing was a bigger deal than I had thought. The K’s were bouncing back and forth between their rooms, discussing what to wear. It didn’t seem like a hard decision, just pick something you don’t mind getting wet, but I wasn’t a teenage girl.

My dad and new mom were in the kitchen fixing breakfast and preparing snacks for the day ahead. As usual, Dad was listening to a 60’s rock station. Normally, that’s not a problem. I was kind of a Beatles/Stones fan anyway, but that morning my leather-lunged father insisted on singing along to his favorite songs. The station was having a Rolling Stones tribute that morning, which really gets my dad cranked up.

“Hey kiddo,” he said, smiling at me, “thought you were gonna sleep all day.”

“Geez, Dad, it’s only 9:30.”

“And we’re leaving soon,” Marge added. “We’ve got to get set up before noon. We want to catch as many people as we can after church.”

“When everybody is feeling charitable,” Dad said, grinning like he had just figured that out.

After a normal Sunday morning breakfast of eggs, bacon, and toast, the girls ran back to their room, returning a few moments later with what they had decided to wear, matching (of course) white t-shirts and blue shorts, with red bands around their heads. I’d never seen them do that before, and Kiley explained, “It’s to keep our curls out of the water.” I have to admit they did look kind of cute in those red, white, and blue outfits, and being the young perv that I was, I took a moment to imagine how many of the girls would be wearing white shirts, and what might be revealed when they got wet.

I had assumed the car wash would be in somebody’s driveway or front yard, but as we piled into Marge’s SUV, she told me it would be in a Walmart parking lot. “We found out last year that they let groups like us hold car washes there, and they even match all the money we make.”

Like the ever-practical accountant I would eventually grow up to be, I asked, “Why would they do that?”

“Just being a good part of the community, I guess,” Marge explained.

It looked like most of the team was there by the time we arrived. A few of the parents were setting up tents, while others were hooking up hoses. Everyone else was standing around talking, like troops waiting to be told when to go into battle. Katie and Kiley headed for some of their friends, leaving me alone to wander around, which was what I wanted. I was hoping that I could spot Elsa and “accidentally” run into her.

It didn’t take me long to find her. Elsa was in the middle of a group of players. She was the tallest player on the team, and coupled with her long blonde hair, in thick braids that day, she looked like a Viking warrior. I didn’t want to seem too eager, so I slowly meandered in her direction, trying not to make eye contact or seem too desperate. Yeah, I was being anything but cool.

My demented mind had hoped to see a dozen or so young girls frolicking around in two-part swimwear, if not actual bikinis, but most of the girls were wearing their usual t-shirts and shorts, like my sisters. The only two girls wearing bathing suits were Elsa and the team’s smallest player, a munchkin named Jenny, who wore a red one-piece suit that would probably have been acceptable at a Mormon church outing. Her skinny body barely filled the spandex. When she turned her back, I could see hints of tiny butt cheeks being displayed. I almost felt bad that her little-girl features slightly stimulated me.

When I finally managed to make eye contact with Elsa, she smiled and waved. Okay, signal sent and received. I walked over, trying very hard to maintain eye contact and not stare at all the Swedish girl-flesh she was displaying. Soccer uniforms, especially the ones keepers wear, aren’t exactly revealing, so I had only been able to get brief glimpses of her natural beauty. Now I could see her powerful legs all the way up to where her pale skin disappeared into the bottom part of her suit. She had tan lines on the top half of her legs, so it didn’t look like she spent a lot of time wearing a bathing suit.

Then I noticed her breasts. Okay, drum roll please - they were spectacular. Nothing outrageous, like the models in my girlie mags, but still, compared to other girls her age, more than enough to fill the top part of her two-piece. I’d guessed that her boobs were nice from what I could see under her baggy soccer shirts, but now, there they were, on display for me to ogle, which I tried very hard not to do. Her arms, from the shoulders down, had a nice, soccer-girl tan, like the lower part of her legs, but the rest of her body looked more like the Scandinavian princess she was. Her midriff was bare, giving me a view of her stomach and navel, when I was daring enough to take a peek. It’s strange what simple things can turn a teenage boy on, and I found myself fascinated with her innie.

Since this wasn’t their first fundraiser, the team had the procedure down to assembly-line-like efficiency. The coaches got everyone together and started giving out assignments. Elsa volunteered to be a ‘washer’, whatever that was, and asked me if I wanted to work with her. That was probably the easiest exam question I’d had in a long time.

Once we started getting customers, I figured out the routine. Some of the girls sprayed the cars as they rolled to a stop under one of the tents. Another group, including Elsa and me, started washing the cars with soapy water and sponges. So, that was washer duty. Next, the hose-girls, and yes, there were lots of stupid jokes about calling them that, started rinsing the soap off. Then the driver would pull forward, where an army of girls, and a few parents, would dry them off (the cars, not the drivers). Kiley and Katie were ‘dryers’, which turned out to be a tough job when the afternoon sun started beaming down on them. I began to see Elsa’s wisdom in choosing to work under the tent, and occasionally getting sprayed with cool water.

After the first half-dozen or so cars went through, we were all getting wet, and it wasn’t long before the girls started taking their damp t-shirts off. That’s what I had been waiting for. I found myself in the middle of a covey (the right word?) of half-naked teenybobbers. Okay, half-naked is an exaggeration; they still had their sports bras on, but still, I could see that some of the parents were getting uncomfortable.