Under pressure

Over the years, I have told you of the single greatest invention on numerous occasions. Unfortunately, because I get quite excited about many things, the single greatest invention has been replaced every, oh, four days. Among the few anointed ones: the Dial-A-Dumpster program (They bring a Dumpster to your house! For free!!!!); the Chill Wizard (It chills a warm canned beverage! In under a minute!!!); The race car shopping cart (Kids can ride in a race car! And you can get shopping done!!!); and the Roomba (It vacuums and terrifies the cat! And I don’t have to be there!!!).
So today I am not going to tell you that the gas-powered pressure washer is the greatest invention ever. But it does join the Hall of Fame that the aforementioned have notably entered.
I base this on a lifetime of experiences with pressure washers, including my latest encounter with one.
For those of you not familiar with gas-powered pressure washers, the concept is simple: Combine an incredibly loud lawnmower engine with a water hose, and you get a water ray gun of death, one with equal parts of awesome cleaning power and destructive foot shredding capability. I have used them in the past, which means I have learned from my past mistakes ONLY to use them when I am good and ready to start cleaning. Most first-time pressure washers have made that mistake. For example, let’s say you want to clean your sidewalk. You get your pressure washer set up, you fire it up, and you point the hose at the ground. Sploooosh!!!!! The stream of water barrels out and blasts the funk off of your sidewalk. Pretty cool, you think. And it doesn’t take much time for you to come to the following conclusion: “I could write my name with this.”
But the sidewalk certainly isn’t a big enough place to write your whole name in pressure washer script. No, you need a much bigger canvas. And before you know it, you have written a big cursive “MICHAEL WHITFIELD GIBBONS” in your driveway. (OK, that would be weird if you wrote MICHAEL WHITFIELD GIBBONS in your driveway. I would hope you would have written your own name.) Anywho, looking at the big pressure-washed signature, you’re mighty proud. And then you realize that when you start pressure washing, you have to finish. It would be like ironing the sleeve of a shirt while the rest is hideously wrinkled. And if you have ever pressure washed an entire driveway, you know that it takes about 11 days to complete. So the key for the experienced pressure washer is only to start the jobs you are ready to finish. Don’t get cute. Don’t get fancy. Don’t write your name. Don’t do what you think are funny wisecracking pictures that only your neighbors can see from their second stories. If you don’t want to pressure wash something in its entirety, don’t get the pressure washer anywhere near it.
My latest pressure washing adventure came after my wife made the comment that the brick walk at the front of our house was no longer brick. “We have a moss and dirt sidewalk,” she told me. Pshaw, I told her. That’s brick. Weathered. Aged. Has a story to tell. And then I looked at it. Actually, not a lot of discernible brick there. It was very much like we had a dirt path leading up to our house. Well, a dirt path with some moss growing on it. The story it had to tell: “I need to be pressure washed.”
So I borrowed my brother-in-law’s pressure washer. I knew he had one because I was over at my sister’s house and saw him out back using it. He had made the mistake of letting the pressure washer touch a single square inch of his back patio, which means he was then relegated to spending the next two weeks of his life finishing that project.
When I got the washer, I was careful to make sure that only the brick walk was touched by the pressure washer. And the best way to ensure that? Do not allow children within one mile of the pressure washer. Sure, a pressure washer is a good fun toy for kids. But you’ve got to keep focused.
As I blasted off the walk, I was amazed at the gunk coming off of the sidewalk. Slowly, an actual brick sidewalk began to emerge. By the time I finished, it was amazing to stand back and see what looked like a brand new brick sidewalk.
I still have the pressure washer, and there are a still a few odds and ends I want to knock out with it. For example, I’d like to clean off the shutters and maybe clean off the eaves. Of course, there is part of me that really wants to sign my name in the driveway.