A Very Emirati Car Wash

There are a million things about the UAE that drive me crazy (or, as my British friends would say, "does my head in"), but there are some aspects of life here which I find oddly endearing. One of them is getting your car washed. Now, there are other options, one of them, like in the US, being when you fill up your car. Almost every station (all of which are full service by the way, and are happy to accept tipes) has a car wash. Interestingly enough, although also logically enough, many of the gas stations, especially on long stretches of road such as between Abu Dhabi and Dubai, also have a little mosque. I've never actually had my car washed at the gas station, mainly because there is almost always a big queue and by the time I've managed to fill up I'm ready to head out. The other option, and this is the one I love, is getting your car washed at the mall. When you pull up in the mall, either at an outdoor parking lot or in an underground parking garage, a nice gentleman, usually Indian, will come up and ask if you want your car washed. You just pay on the spot and by the time you return your car is nice and clean. They pull up a little mobile car washing device (pictured here), which looks like a cross between a motor scooter on steroids and a military drone, and get to work right away. In a big parking garage you might see a dozen of these little machines tooling around. The entire process costs 20 dirhams (around six dollars) and is wonderfully practical (especially inside of a country where so little is actually practical or even logical). So why are they so popular? Well, I just think they're cute and I like the idea of having someone take care of it for me while I also do my shopping. It could also be a reflection of life in the UAE where we seemingly spend all of our time shuttling back and forth in between posh hotels and posh malls (a couple of my friends have encouraged me to write about my time here, which I'm considering calling The Year of Living Poshly) and thus we are always at one or the other - and living in an arid, sandy environment (and especially now with lots of sandstorms) it does fill a natural niche in the market. Or maybe we're just too busy/lazy here in the UAE to be bothered with washing our own car. I can only speak for myself in saying that it makes me much more likely to wash my car.