How many dollars will I spend on a dog wash?

Today I asked myself a bizarre question.  “How many dollars will I pay for a dog wash?” Ordinarily, I would tell you that I would not spend any money to give our dog a bath.  Why would I spend money, when we have a water hose and soap at the house?  However, a couple of days ago, I noticed something that caught my eye at the car wash.  It was a Do It Yourself Dog Wash and I was intrigued.  This appeared to be a good idea for the summer.  My children could get the dog clean without making a mess at the house and have fun at the same time.

We took our dog, Lucy, to the park which was close to the car wash.  This would be our perfect opportunity to check out the dog wash.  As we strolled up, I noticed there was already a $1 credit on the machine and I was thrilled to receive a “free” dollar.  I inserted my $5 bill and attempted in every way possible to turn the machine on.  No matter what buttons we pressed, the machine refused to start and there was no way to get a refund.  My daughter advised me that I perhaps needed to put $10 in the machine for it to start.  I assured her that the machine should have started with only $6 as there were 2 stickers on the machine.  One sticker said “$10 for 10 minutes.”  The other sticker said, $5 for 4 minutes.  If I put $4 more dollars in the machine, I would just lose that money as well.

We returned to the car with Lucy very disappointed to say the least.  I noticed a website address on the machine and messaged the company on Facebook.  While waiting on the company to return my message, we decided to drive back home.

Well, it turns out my daughter was correct.  The company messaged me and informed me that the machine required $10 to start the wash cycle. We returned to the dog wash in hopes that the $6 credit remained on the machine.  As we drove into the parking lot we discovered a guy giving his large dog a bath.  Of course, by this point, I had 2 trips and $6 already invested in getting our dog clean. There was no turning back now.   So, we vacuumed out the car while we waited for the machine to be free.

 Once again, we placed Lucy in the tub and this time I put in a crisp $10 bill.  The machine began working and it did a great job.  Lucy got a nice warm bath with shampoo, conditioner and flee and tick shampoo and was dried off with a warm dryer.  So, the answer is, apparently, I will pay $16 for a dog wash, or at least I did today.  I will also say that this doggy wash was quite nifty and worked well for Lucy.

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