We've all had dozens of these encounters, but I thought I'd mention this one anyway.
A couple weeks ago my company had a Saturday picnic at a park in town. My wife and I were on the way when we saw that a high school was holding a charity car-wash sort of thing. I figured, hey, why not?
We pulled in and I drove up next to a lady handing out promotional stuff that area businesses had chipped in. Coupons, ads, etc. Made the car wash deal a little sweeter.
This lady's jaw *drops* and she takes a step back, removing her sunglasses.
'NOW I know why I agreed to do this,' she exclaims. 'That is a NEAT car!'
We take the swag and advance to the pre-rinsing station. A rental company must have donated power-washers, because the kids were hooked up. Rinse the car, move on to the washing...
...whereupon more than TWENTY high school students descended upon my car like ants on a Twinkie. Terrifying, but we made it to the drying...
...where more than TWENTY MORE high school students with towels rushed the car again. I had already locked the doors at the previous station, but I reached for the buttom again. If snapped correctly, over twenty wet towels MIGHT be able to break glass, I figured.
We made it through safe and sound. Barely. But as we made our donation, we could have no idea what horror awaited us next.
This high school has a giant parking lot, divided into huge sections ('Giant,' in this context, is apparently bigger than 'huge.'). I turned down the wrong one was was met by a sea of cones, arranged in an obvious obstacle course. 'Autocrossing,' I wondered. Nope. City bus driver training.
'ACK!' A quick throw of the selector shoved the car in reverse and probably shortened the life of the transmission as my wife and I were hurtled backwards - but out of the way of a careening bus that had the remnants of a dozen or so cones stuffed in its grille.
Okay, okay, I admit that I embellished the story a little at the end. The bus-driver training was actually pretty boring and pedestrian, but they DO make those guys thread the buses through spaces I might not be able to fit the SVX through.
Back to work...