On a recent visit to the West Midlands, I was driving in the Black Country when I noticed a small sign at the side of the road, which said: Hand Car Wash and below it the price. I carried on driving, because I was not inclined to spend money in this regard, nor devote the time. I did wonder though whether the car wash was completely by hand, or whether an operator did in fact make use of a steam jet. Anyway, it was irrelevant, so I let it go.
However, about a mile and a half further on, I saw to my left further signs, touting similar input for my motor. I say 'similar' because the offers were not identical. No, the sign that caught my eye said: Hot Hand Car Wash. Now I was confused. Was the person set to wash cars an individual with hot hands? Was he perhaps the owner of just the one hot hand? If so, was that because only one had been warmed to the level of 'hot', or because he in fact had just the one hand? Or, did the hand have some sort of quality (sexual, aesthetic?) that meant it might legitimately be described as 'hot'? Any of these could have applied; it told me nothing about the actual car wash, but it did confirm the (subjective) temperature of the hand of the person in charge of the washing. Perhaps the washer would use a jetwash with a handle that gets hot, which in turn gives the person a hot hand?
My mind then moved on a bit, to consider the option that this was in fact an offer of a 'Hand Car Wash' that was hot. Again there could be two angles here; was this again an assessment of the service, so that 'hot' could have a meaning akin to 'sexy' or 'super'? Or, are we back to saying that the Hand Car Wash was one completed with hot water? If that was so, then surely the competition a mile and a half up the road had made a fatal mistake in its advertising campaign, omitting the word 'Hot'. If the Hand Car Wash sign I'd driven past was touting a service using just cold water, then it would have been inferior, and not worth the price. However, I suspect that common sense would mean few people would attempt to wash a car without hot water. This doesn't, though, cover the possible use of the word 'warm'. A 'Warm Hand Car Wash' starts sounding a bit weird though.
Next to the sign that said Hot Hand Car Wash was another that said: Shine Hand Car Wash. It could not possibly have meant that the person washing the cars had a shiny hand, as the last letter was most definitely an 'e' not a 'y'. I guessed that this would be a car wash that was followed by some sort of effort to make the car shine. Whether that would be possible after a hand car wash is debatable, for the temperature of the water and the temperature of the hand (or hands) would most surely have some bearing on the outcome . . . . ?
All this resulted from some small signs strategically placed by car washers. I think when I do get around to sorting out my car, I will either do it myself, or take it to a Car Wash - an automatic one where you sit in your car and the massive contraption surrounds it and gets rid of the dirt.
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