Windshield wipers are a unique invention. They are designed to clear moisture, snow and various other vision detrimental debris from your vehicle’s windshield. They work perfectly just as long as driving your vehicle does not depend on your being able to see where in the heck you are going.
For example, I’m a very short person, and my brother is quite tall. If I am behind the wheel of my car, the windshield wipers will leave a nice, wide streak of goo right at my eye level so that I have to contort myself like Quasimodo in order to see which tree I’m about to drive into.
My brother, on the other hand, can get into the same car, behind the same windshield, and the stripe of goo will magically re-orient itself to match his eye level. This stripe of goo is an equal opportunity annoyer. I have noticed over the years that I have spent terrorizing America’s highways, that the stripe of goo never, ever occurs on the passenger’s side of the windshield. Never. This may come in helpful if you regularly drive with a passenger beside you since that person can act as guide dog to the blind person behind the wheel.
So when your passenger taps you upside the head with a brick, and shouts, “there is a car coming, you idiot! Get back in your own lane!” It might be a good idea to do as they demand because they know the truth about what is directly ahead of you while you are totally ignorant and apathetic to the whole she-bang. I had one driving experience in the winter of ‘96 where windshield wipers were pretty much useless, considering that I was trying to drive in a complete whiteout.
I could not see trees, houses, on-coming traffic, pedestrians, or the pavement itself, so I was pretty much simply aiming the car in the general direction of home, while traveling at approximately 0 miles per hour and praying out loud the whole way that the bump under my tires was not someone’s best friend.
I actually did make it home that day safe and sound, albeit nearly two hours after I had begun the nine mile journey, and I never once ended up in a corn field, or in someone’s backyard. I did, however, learn the power of prayer that day, which comes in handy when I get really bright ideas about stuff I want to do, like bungee jumping for example.
I think I am probably the only person on the planet who has ever scraped ice off the INSIDE of the windshield. This is a unique experience, and it looks very reassuring to other drivers on the road when they are coming at you and you are busy scraping away like mad at the glass in front of you, trying to give yourself at least a tiny window of vision on the outside world before you kill somebody. This is what I like to call, “the demon in my defroster” who likes to make everything work in reverse--just for kicks.
Everyone tries to explain away this strange and unique phenomenon, usually by patiently guiding me through the instructions of how to use the car’s defroster, but what they don’t realize, is that I already am using the mechanism in question, but the darn thing is possessed and has turned against me.
One day, rather than getting angry at my windshield wipers, I chose to simply fold myself practically in half so I could peer out from under the stripe of goo and continue to drive. This worked pretty well for a few minutes, except for the crick in my neck, but then the demon awakened and hopped from the defroster to the wipers, and proceeded to move that stripe of goo, while I watched. It came to a stop directly in my new line of vision, which meant that Quasimodo could now straighten up again and drive like a normal human being.
This lasted about twenty seconds until the demon figured out that I could see, and then two stripes of goo formed on the windshield…one in front of my line of sight, and the other in Quasi’s. This forced me to somehow become taller, and I basically drove the rest of the way to my destination with my neck stretched as far as it would go and my eyes bugging out of my skull. I made it home safely but I can’t win…The next day there were three stripes of goo.
This goo is impervious to wiper fluid and logic. It will not come off no matter how hard you scrub, but it is a living entity that can change its position at will. It comes factory installed with the car, and never needs replacing for the entire life of your vehicle. Even if you replace your old set of wipers with expensive new ones, the goo remains and will not even have the decency to hide out for a few days to let you think your new wipers are working.
The mechanic who installs your new wipers will give the stripe of goo a little love tap before charging you an arm and a leg for their two minutes of service to your vehicle. I’ve seen this love tap many times…sometimes it takes the form of a caress….
So, there you have it, the complete truth about windshield wipers. Knowing the truth will not set you free in this case, but it might keep you from buying the most expensive windshield wipers and fluid. Buy the cheap stuff, your car won’t care and the goo won’t even notice how much it costs.
Oh yeah, and don’t forget to buy a real nice set of big, fuzzy dice to hang on the rear view mirror. The techs at the factory often forget to do this, and the defroster demon loves to slap ‘em around so they swing in your face while you’re driving the wrong way down the one way street. Hey, if you can’t beat ‘em, might as well make ‘em happy.
