As Max trotted out of the house, he realized he wasn't alone. Rico the gardener's son did odd jobs for Chad's family, and he was in the backyard with Chad's car on the concrete pad getting ready to give it its weekly wash. Max trotted over to Chad's car. Sometimes he thought Chad loved the car more than he loved Max.
"Looks like the seagulls had a field day on Chad's car," whined Rico. Then he noticed the blue fabric in Max's mouth, and added, "Oh, you brought me a rag to help wash the car?"
Rico reached over petting Max's head with one hand, as he took the wadded up blue fabric from Max's mouth. He plunged it into a bucket of sudsy water, and began scrubbing the bird crap plastered to Chad's rear windshield.
"Yuck!" shrieked Chad.
Max heard and yapped happily. Whether Rico would have heard will remain unknown because he had his tunes blaring in his earbuds, as he scrubbed.
"Boy, when we're done here. I'll toss these rags in the washer, and we'll have clean rags for your bath after I take you for a walk in the park, Max."
Right, Rico was supposed to wash Chad's car, take Max walkies, and then wash and groom Max. Wait? He uses the same rags on the car and Max. He's going to put me in the washer and dryer? Speedos are supposed to hang dry, doesn't he know anything? ranted Chad to himself. Max's yaps sounded like laughter. Could he understand Chad?
At last the car was shiny. Chad was so sore. He'd been rinsed, wrung, and finally, used to apply car wax and buffing to his car. He was filthy, and tossed in a pile with the other dirty rags. Then Rico carried the rags into the garage and tossed them in the washing machine. Hot water gushed in and made suds around them.
"NO HOT WATER!" shrieked Chad.
Max yelped, and stared at the washer.
"No worries, Max, those rags are just getting washed. Now let's play a little ball!" Rico said tossing a tennis ball.
GLUB, glub, glub.
The spin dry was the worst. Chad had thought it would be like Tilt-a-Whirl at the fair, but it was ten times worse. He lay there in the tub plastered to the side of the washing machine. Rico peeled him and the other rags out, and tossed them into the dryer. At least it had been the short wash cycle.
Then the dryer roared to life.
NO!
I'm melting! sobbed Chad. Max dashed into the garage and stared at the dryer.
"Something wrong, Max?" Rico said, he opened the dryer, and shrugged, "Well, I guess they're dry enough. I'll let them finish drying on the clothesline, while we are gone walkies."
Chad sighed as he was stretched out and pinned to the clothesline on the side of the garage between an old t-shirt, and a chamois that were both being used as rags.