car wash and greek mythology

I love going through the car wash.

I think what I like about it is seeing the water wash over the outside of the shell of my car, and the kelp-forest-like cloth strips thumping and draping on the windshield and side windows,, like I'm in an underwater vehicle, like jaques cousteau. i dunno.

The one I just went to was awesome, the most elaborate and prolonged car wash I'd been in. I couldn't stop smiling. There is even a THREE COLOR WAX or something like that. With a neon rainbow arch. And there were indeed 3 types, sudsy pink, blue and yellow, with a sort of chemical candy smell.

Greek mythology kicks ass:

At Ephesos, southwest of Lydia, he captured and bound the Kerkopes. These were dwarfish pranksters who played tricks on passers-by near Ephesos or at the narrow pass of Thermopylai in Thessaly. According to Tzetzes they were two brothers who had laughed at their mother, the Okeanid Theia, when she warned them that “they had not yet met the man with a black bottom.” While Herakles was sleeping they stole his wallet, but he awoke, caught them, and hung them head downwards from his shoulders (or from a pole, as artistic versions usually portray this incident); since it was warm Herakles was wearing no trousers and from their vantage point the Kerkopes could see his buttocks and genitals, “bushy and black-haired;” remembering what their mother had told them they broke into laughter and Herakles, equally amused, set them free.

Heh, Herakles was gross.

And:

A peculiar aspect of Herakles’ stay with Omphale is the custom they adopted of wearing one another’s clothing. Painters portrayed Herakles wearing a yellow petticoat and having his hair combed by Lydian girls. Ovid says that Herakles wore a diaphanous purple negligee and a girdle which could not fit around his waist, while Omphale wore his lion-skin and carried his club. While the two lovers were asleep, wearing each other’s clothes, in a Lydian cave, the god Pan crept in and began to feel his way through the darkness. When he reached the beds, he first touched the lion-skin; thinking this was Herakles he lay down next to the other sleeping figure and pulled up its dress. Discovering a pair of hairy thighs, he nevertheless was about to proceed further when Herakles awoke and pushed him away. For this reason, says Ovid, Pan hates deceptive clothing and those who participate in his rites must worship naked.

O, also I should read me some Ann Radcliffe (early Gothic author), whose work is luckily on Project Gutenberg.