[1]: http://www.helenmartin.com/?p=114
[2]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windshield
[3]: http://www.tapecase.com/tc/3Minfo.asp?3Mtype=688&3Mdb=3MINDBUSRELPROD

My [Lovely Bride’s post about me][1] peaked a smidgen of curiosity, so I’ve decided to tell a wonderfully embarrassing story about myself.

I hate a dirty windshield. My nice little gumball of a Nissan Sentra had an ever-dirty windshield. It drove me nuts. Seriously. As you will see.

I decided it was all the drive-through, no-touch car washes I’d been putting it through. That it had built up a bunch of cheap wax where wax shouldn’t be. No matter how well I Windex-ed the windshield or how new the wiper blades were, the blades hopped along noisily when activated, and left streaks and smears in their wake. Not so bad that anyone else would care much. But it drove me nuts.

To prove my insanity, I hatched a plan. I was going to scrub the windshield free of any waxy residue. With what? Well, I heard somewhere that glass is harder than brass, so I though a [“non-stick safe” 3M scrubbie pad][3] would certainly be softer yet. And I may have been right. But my [missing fact][1] was that windshields are not just glass. They are [coated with plastic][2]. That’s what actually makes them “safety glass” and keeps the glass from flying around in an accident.

Well, armed with my disillusion, I attacked the windshield. I soaped it up and very gently swirled and swirled with my scrubbie pad. Bubbles grew. It smelled good. I grabbed the hose and rinsed… off… the…

I still think it was the waxy build up. The wipers didn’t hop or leave streaks after that. And what I did could actually have been considered artistic in some sense. Very lightly scratched into the whole windshield were swirls and swirls which interacted with nighttime lights in the most psychedelic ways. Haunting me – mocking me – every night thereafter; whispering “idiot”.