Working at the Haunted Carwash
Of all the trends I have seen in my life, the haunted carwash is by far the one with the most untapped potential. The kernel is so sweet and good: the car wash, a banal feature of modern life and boring errand, transformed into a fun, artistic creative expression of haunting, overwhelming eerie weirdness through a few carefully chosen design features. What could be better? For too long, carwashes have been bland, anodyne and without personality. If a carwash could be haunted in October, could it not become a winter wonderland in December? A tunnel of love in February? A reenactment of the Mexican Army’s 1862 victory over the French at the Battle of Puebla in May?
There’s a psychological theory about things that are creepy, or uncanny: that they are the combination of things that are familiar with elements that are very unfamiliar and strange. It’s the pairing of an ordinary thing, like a house, or even a comforting thing, like a doll or a teddy bear, combined with the supernatural and bizarre, like a demonically possessed doll or a haunted teddy bear, or, like, a blue plastic wipe moving slowly, ever so slowly, down the window of your 2013 Honda Accord and cleaning off some of the grime and dead leaves.
Examples of the HCW can be found in Long Island, New York, eastern Ohio, and west Texas. I also, interestingly, found records of haunted car washes dating as far back as 2016. Remember 2016? I certainly don’t. After doing some research, it appears 2016 was a pandemic-free year in which social life flourished and haunted houses proliferated across the earth. In 2020, local news outlets just can’t get enough of area HCWs, which are a fun and pleasant local news story which makes a nice change. Many are raising funds for good causes. HCW owners seem totally earnest, anxious to please/terrify. “We put soap on your car, giving us the element of surprise,” a car wash owner in Tennessee helpfully told the local news. And yet some carwash owners decided that their premises should be haunted. Most of the quotes from customers describe the experience as ‘funny,’ ‘hilarious,’ or just ‘different’ rather than ‘terrifying.’ And maybe that’s enough motivation to go to a carwash.
Maybe it’s just making lemonade out of lemons, and the whole party politely sipping and pretending not to notice that the lemonade is kind of sour and has a few seeds floating in it. And a little bit of soap. You know, for the element of surprise.
Happy Halloween!
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