Why we need the grime of Ash Wednesday

Driving in an upper midwestern city during winter is to put one’s car through a daily salt bath. Unlike salt float tanks for the body, there’s no therapeutic benefit to these street salt baths. They rot cars and turn painted steel into iron oxide. They consume, to use a Jesus verb.

My car has been rotting for more than a month, if that’s what happens when it doesn’t get run through the car wash. I don’t avoid the wash out of sloth. It’s just no fun spending money on such temporary delight when salt and slush recoat the car within the first three blocks. For much of the winter, I live content with my car’s ashen gray color.

The other day I was driving behind an SUV when I suddenly felt a burst of pride. This guy’s car was more salt-splattered than mine. On the tailgate window, in large letters, were those famous begging words with exclamation points: WASH ME!! As I followed the car for several miles, my mind wandered. What if the owner himself—not some smart aleck randomly tagging cars—put up that lettering? Maybe he honestly thought some kind soul would walk up to him in a parking lot and say, “Can I please wash your car for you?” Assuming, though, that the owner wasn’t quite so naive, I began to wonder if he bore no shame. Here he is driving around with a billboard hanging on the back of his car and, for what any observer would know, those words may have been up there for years.