A very clean car — and an awkward sexologist moment

A very clean car — and an awkward sexologist moment

When it’s a hot day and you decide today is finally the day you’ll get the car washed. Not just washed. Valeted.

Because, if I’m being honest, I seem to spend about half my life in that car, driving between clinics, meetings, trains, supermarkets and whatever else I’ve somehow agreed to do — and evidently dropping crumbs in the process.

So I pull up at the hand wash and settle onto a plastic chair in the sunshine while they work their magic. Forty-five minutes later I’m still there, texting a group of sexologist friends about how embarrassingly filthy my car is.

At one point I notice one of the team climb out of the back seat wearing gloves. “Wow,” I text. “It’s so bad they’ve had to put protective equipment on.” Much amusement.

The penny drops

Fast forward a few hours. My daughter has been out practising her driving. We get home, I reach into the back seat to grab the shopping and spot a neat little pile of items the valeting team have thoughtfully collected for me: a few tissues, and several sachets of lube.

The penny dropped. The gloves were not, in fact, because of the state of the car.

And while I like to think the obvious conclusion would have been “Ah yes, she must be a sexologist”… I strongly suspect that was not the narrative forming in their minds. Anyway: the car looks fantastic.