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The FJ Cruiser, tangerine, a 2012 vintage, hunkered in the driveway, a squat, almost comical presence against the grey scrim of a Bremerton January. Not my driveway, precisely, but the one appended to the split-level I’ve temporarily colonized. The FJ, though, that’s mine. Acquired, a month back, from West Hills Autoplex, a name that resonates with a certain… optimism, a can-do Americanism that feels both quaint and vaguely cosmopolitan. They had a lot of cars, West Hills. A regular car bazaar, a teeming lot under a sky that threatened, but never quite delivered, rain. The sales staff, surprisingly, were not predatory as one expects in these situations, more like patient docents in some automotive museum. The financing, too, proceeded with an almost lubricious ease, the paperwork sliding across the desk like a greased piglet. One felt, momentarily, almost… soiled, by the sheer lack of friction.
The FJ itself… well, it’s a statement, isn’t it? A rolling anachronism, a throwback to a simpler, more rectilinear age. It’s boxy, almost brutish, yet there’s a certain charm in its ungainliness, a kind of honest, workaday appeal. It swallows the miles, the slush, the general miasma of a Pacific Northwest winter, with a stoic indifference. I’ve taken it up to the mountains, naturally, where the snow lies piled like dirty laundry, a landscape of white and grey, punctuated by the dark spires of fir trees. The children, bundled in their Michelin-man suits, shriek with joy as they careen down the slopes on inflatable tubes. One wonders, though, if their laughter is entirely genuine, or the reflex of surviving the insanity of an uncontrolled plummet through the trees, spending as much time bounced in the air as on the snow.
And the driving… it’s a peculiar sensation, this lumbering progress through the winterscape. The FJ feels solid, planted, like a tank on treads. The visibility, surprisingly, is excellent, the world unfolding before you in a series of framed vignettes. The four-wheel drive engages with a reassuring thunk, a mechanical affirmation of its purpose. One feels, briefly, in control, master of one’s destiny, though, of course, this is merely an illusion. Destiny, like the weather, is a force beyond our control.
The problem, naturally, is the dirt. All this winter adventuring leaves the FJ coated in a layer of grime, a film of mud and road salt that clings to the paint like a second skin. Hand-washing, in January, is an exercise in masochism. The water, even through gloves, bites at the skin, leaving the fingers numb and clumsy. One shivers, not from cold alone, but from a deeper, existential chill.
And then, salvation. Klean Freak Car Wash. The name itself is a kind of pop-art pronouncement, a celebration of cleanliness in a dirty world. They offer both touchless and tunnel washes, a choice between the ethereal and the visceral. The touchless, I imagine, is like being cleansed by a benevolent ghost, a gentle caress of pressurized water. The tunnel wash, on the other hand, is a more robust affair, a mechanical ballet of brushes and sprays, a cathartic purging of the accumulated filth. The FJ emerges, blinking in the weak winter sun, restored to a semblance of its former glory.
So, there it is. The FJ, the mountains, the children’s laughter, the grime, the salvation of Klean Freak. A small tableau of suburban life, played out against the backdrop of a Pacific Northwest winter. One wonders, sometimes, if this is all there is. The endless cycle of dirt and cleaning, the fleeting moments of joy snatched from the jaws of routine. But then, one climbs back into the FJ, turns the key, and the engine rumbles to life, a promise of further adventures, further accumulations of grime. And one drives on, into the grey, towards the next car wash, the next fleeting moment of… what? Happiness? Perhaps. Or perhaps just a temporary respite from the relentless accumulation of dust.
Categories:
Pre-Owned Inventory
