People in Los Angeles do some weird stuff to chill out and relax. Hot yoga, Pilates, meditation, and a bunch of freaky stuff that you or I wouldn’t even understand, but that folks out here are happy to drop big bucks on.
I’ve got them all beat, and it’s more relaxing and cheaper! I take my car down to the fancy car wash when I get back from a trip.
I hate it when I come back from a week or two out of town, and my car is all covered in dirt. So my routine has always been to take my car down to the fancy car wash, go through the automatic wash, and hand it off to an expert—one of these cats who does this every day, for a living. Look, I’ve done it myself thousands of times, with a big old sponge and a soapy tub full of water in my driveway. But I just traversed half the planet, I’m jet lagged, it’s 86 degrees outside, and sometimes you just gotta treat yourself.
I let them spray and wipe and scrub and dry and buff and vacuum my car, and I head straight for a pair of grungy old massage chairs in the back of the inside room that nobody wants to hang out in. This is my meditation space.
The car wash costs 30 bucks. I usually tip the guy 10 or 12 bucks depending on how good a job he does detailing the car. And I drop 5 bucks in the massage chair and enjoy 20 minutes of semi-consciousness and drool-worthy mechanical kneading of my twisted back muscles. When the massage stops, my car is ready to go. The car looks good as new, I feel warm and wiggly from the massage, and I have contributed to the local economy. And if you think that sounds like a lot to spend on a relaxing hour of fun, brother, I have news for you about the price of hot yoga sessions in this town.
Today, you should treat yourself, spend a couple of bucks and make yourself happy. Every day shouldn’t be a race to the bottom. Enjoy life a little bit.
