The Miracle of the Windshield Washer Fluid

This week has been very, very cold. On Friday, the temperature dropped below freezing and stayed there all weekend and into the week. On Saturday, my roommate and I were driving around in her SUV, and she mentioned that her windshield washer fluid was frozen. Apparently, you have to put in a special kind of cold-weather fluid, or it freezes. Who knew? I hoped mine was that special kind while guessing that it was not.

So last night, the temperature dropped to almost ten degrees. When I leave this morning, the big sign at the bank says it's eighteen. That's okay, though. The sun is out, the roads are clear; basically, everything is good. Then I hit Everett.

(On Monday, the entire Seattle metro area was hit by this huge snowstorm. Buses flipped, cars crashed, and a cargo plane even slid off the runway at Sea-Tac. It looked horrendous on the news. I had been planning to drive home yesterday afternoon, but the crazy weather prompted me to wait so I-5 through Seattle could clear up for one more night. Of course, nothing melted because it didn't get above freezing.)

Anyway, so this morning I reach Everett, the sun hides behind some thick gray clouds, and the road is suddenly filthy. It is only dry thanks to loads and loads of salt and sand coating its surface. This salt and sand start to shower my windshield as the vehicles around me kick them into the air.

I press the button for the windshield washer. Nothing comes out, but the wipers dutifully wipe the dirt across the windshield. It looks worse than before! I think. I let the dirt patter the windshield a little longer and then press the button again. The dry wipers smear the stuff across the windshield. Now I'm getting worried because I can't see very well. It's like looking through sunglasses, except it's cloudy. I wonder how long I can keep it up. Finally, really nervous about how obscured my view is becoming, I stop in Lynnwood right before entering Seattle.

The road right off the exit is rather covered in snow. I drive very, very carefully until I see a Chevron. I pull in and mince over the ice to the little Chevron store. Inside is a guy in a blue jumpsuit, which I find comforting. He even took the windshield washing stuff inside so it wouldn't freeze! I borrow a squeegee and clean my windshield. When I return the squeegee, I ask the guy what I can do about the fact that my washer fluid is frozen. I am hoping he will sell me something to fix it, but just he says hot water is the only option and not a very good one since it would just freeze up again. (It's now a balmy twenty-three!) I thank him and get back in my car.

Now I have to think a little bit. I have been driving with the front defroster on warm for about two hours, and my washer fluid is still frozen. This is a good sign that I can't rely on it to thaw any time soon. It had taken me twenty minutes from when I first hit the dirty part of the freeway for my windshield to get so bad that I had to stop. Twenty minutes should take me through Seattle on the express lanes, after which I can exit and clean the windshield at another service station.

After deciding on this plan, I slowly make my way to the freeway entrance and start again towards Seattle. I line up for the express lanes, which are fast because they have very few exits. No sooner have I entered the express lane, but the driver of the car in front of me turns on his windshield washer. Big drops of dirty water splash onto my windshield. That's not good, I think to myself. Then a big car-carrying truck pulls up on my left. Huge gobs of mud fly off the cars and splat, splat, splat on my windshield. It's as if a piece of cloth is covering the windshield. (I know this because when I was a kid I liked to put cloth over my face and marvel that I could still see shapes through it.) I concentrate on the white dashed lines on the road because I can barely see anything else. My heart races. We are going sixty miles an hour. There are no exits and will not be any exits until I reach the other side of the city. I am in a middle lane of four or five total because two more lanes have just joined the expressway on the left and right sides. The shoulders, could I reach them, are obscured by mounds of snow deposited by snowplows on Monday night. The sun, which had been hiding behind clouds, is starting to peek out again, threatening to illuminate the sand on my windshield and dazzle me.

White-knuckled, I consider my options. I could keep driving straight, guided by the white dashed lines, through Seattle, and exit as soon as I can. This is dangerous because my windshield continues to be splattered by sand, salt, and mud. By the time I get through the city (which I have just entered), my windshield could be completely opaque. As I am way too short to stick my head out of the side window and still reach the pedals as super-bad adventurers do in movies, I would have absolutely no way of navigating should this happen. My other option is to try the windshield washer one more time. This is dangerous because if the fluid does not come out, the wipers would smear the gunk all over my windshield and definitely make it opaque.

What if you said a prayer before you hit the button for the windshield washer? the Holy Ghost suggests.

Don't be silly, I reply. That only works for little kids who've lost their CTR ring.

C'mon, where's your faith? He admonishes. Don't you think your Heavenly Father can make your windshield washer work?

Yeah, but only if it's His will. And what if it's His will that I die in some horrible way because my wipers smeared dirt all over my windshield? What if He wants me to be a quadriplegic? I'm not sure I want to find out.

(Meanwhile, I drive onto the lower deck of the Ship Canal Bridge just as the sun bursts out of the clouds, and I narrowly avoid being blinded. Well, I am already nearly blind, but the sun would have made it worse.)

But if it were His will that you die on this freeway, you should just accept that, right? Just pray and press the button already!

Okay, okay, I tell Him. Dear Heavenly Father, if it be Thy will, please, please, please let my washer fluid work when I press the button, in the name of Jesus Christ, amen. I press the button.

The dry wipers smear the dirt all over my windshield. I can't see anything.

"Argh!" I growl. Then I notice a little dark spot in the lower left corner of the windshield, as if the dirt there had been wet when it smeared. "Oh, please, oh, please," I breathe as I press the button again. (By the grace of God, I stay in my lane while fixating on the windshield washer and paying absolutely no attention to the road.) A little fluid spurts out of both nozzles so that the wipers clean the bottom third of my windshield. At least I can see something! I press the button again. The right nozzle sprays full blast, and the wipers clean the passenger side of my windshield. One more, oh, God, please just let my side work. I press the button one more time, and a glorious spray of washer fluid shoots out of both nozzles. The wipers do their thing, and the windshield is as clear as if it weren't there.

I have thanked God for many things in my life, but my thanks and praise to Him as I sat alone in my Ford Focus that morning were certainly more emphatic than usual. I knew He could make my windshield washer work, of course, but I was not sure that He would. I wasn't sure that He cared enough about my surviving a trip down I-5 to make the effort to unfreeze my washer fluid, but He did. He even had the Holy Spirit remind me how to get help. My Heavenly Father is just totally awesome!

And that's the miracle of the windshield washer fluid.