Unexpected friend.

Byline: Shelby Martin 20Below News Team / The Register-Guard

KA-CHUNK! It's 8 a.m., and I'm punching my timecard, woefully thinking of my friends who are still asleep.

Isn't it a divine right for teen-agers to sleep until noon in the summer?

Rows of dirty cars are taunting me, and I bring my mind back to the task at hand.

For the past three summers, I've been working as a lot attendant at the car dealership where my dad works. I wash cars. A lot of cars. Six thousand, four hundred cars last summer, if my calculations are correct.

But I don't just wash cars. I have other thrilling tasks. Such as weeding. Sweeping the lot. Watering the plants. Vacuuming the rugs. One task not in my job description was making a friend.

Mike has been washing cars day in and day out at the Dunham dealership for more than 16 years. He's a big man with wide glasses, a great laugh and a habit of raising his eyebrows quizzically when he talks.

He rides the bus to work, likes animals better than people sometimes and swears by Banana Boat sun block.

This is the story of what he taught a teen-age girl over three car-washing summers.

The world looks different with Mike. As with a child, everything is new, everything is cause for awe.

One sweltering afternoon, we were hosing ourselves more often than the cars. The water droplets were quickly evaporating off the car we were washing when an oversized fly landed on the windshield.

`Look!' cried Mike. `It's drinkin' water!'

We stopped washing to watch the repulsive, graceful insect. `Drink your water,' urged Mike.

Sometimes we moved cars around the lot. Mike had never been able to have a driver's license, so this was his only opportunity to drive. He clearly relished it.

`Should I do a burnout?' was his constant playful refrain. He loved to scare me by hollering `I'm gonna crash! Watch out for that car!'

He laughed at himself, at me, and at everything in general. His carefree attitude began to rub off on me.

Birds trembled in front of Mike. We were in the middle of spraying down a car when he spotted a crow, searching for food. Mike whirled around and soaked the surprised bird.

`They like it,' he explained casually to me, still spraying. `One time, I got one so wet it couldn't even fly!'

I tried to stifle my laughter. The crow Mike was hosing packed up its wounded dignity and flapped away.

`They like it,' he offered again, congenially.

Just often enough to keep it exciting, salespeople or service people would have leftover food after meetings. Mike has radarlike ability in finding this food.

`There's doughnuts in the break room,' he'd proclaim excitedly. We'd drop the hose and wash mitts to sneak off for a doughnut break.

Talking to Mike is unlike talking to anyone else. I could never tell what the next thing out of his mouth would be.

`What if it turned 1,000 degrees outside right now?'

`What if this hose turned into a big snake?'

Other times he made surprisingly astute comments. I think he needed someone to talk to as badly as I did.

His lack of inhibition opened me up. Working on the steaming blacktop, we talked about animals, waterfalls, candy, the weather, life, love and God.

We made an unlikely pair, a 38-year-old who acted 16, and a 16-year-old trying to be 38. But sunshine, soap and stolen doughnuts pulled us together in a strong bond.

`I might miss you when you're gone,' Mike remarked matter-of- factly the day before I started school.

It's raining while I write this. It's much too wet to wash cars. I wonder what Mike's doing.

Maybe he's wandering through the showroom, teasing the salespeople and talking to the customers. Maybe he's toting boxes of parts or sweeping the service aisle.

I hope someone left some doughnuts in the break room.

Did having Mike as a friend make me more open-minded? Maybe. More accepting of others? I hope so.

Was it the best thing about my summer?

Absolutely.

Shelby Martin is a junior at Sheldon High. She can be reached by e-mail at [e-mail].