Car Wash

I am far from being a car nut. Oh, I might religiously wash and wax a new one for the first month or so, and I don't miss my 3,000 mile oil changes by very much, but car care generally falls pretty far down my list of priorities. When it comes to washing the vehicle, I tend to be of the opinion that a vigorous application of road grime, oxidation, and bird manure protects metal surfaces nearly as well as wax. Which means that it had been about 3 months since the truck's last trip through the local Qwiki-wash. Since it had been so long, I decided to splurge and go for the $6 wash, the one that includes the "underbody spray" and "tri-color wax," though precisely how these are of benefit to me I've yet to discover. At any rate, this particular place has machines that only take cash, which means that I had to utilize the bills I had on hand. I was amazed to discover that the wrinkled up, creased, corner-folded bills I fed the machine went in smooth as a silk. The attendant, who looked to be an older gentleman of about 70, smiled over at me and said, "Takes money just like a woman doesn't it?"

Which caught me completely off guard, and made me laugh. It was as completely unexpected as suddenly hearing my very proper grandmother start cussing. Which made me think about the Lord's anointing of David in 1 Samuel (which I taught in Sunday School last week), and how much our perceptions of people that we gather from the outside don't usually align with who they really are. External appearance is always a lie to one degree or another. What counts is what's in our hearts because, as Jesus said, "From the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks."