Misadventures in product design

[kickaha]

Took Frankenjeep up to a self-service car wash today. (Took me a couple day to find one in the area - a plethora of 'car spas', but no self-service - go figure. Ended up having to drive 40 min north to another county. :P) It's sparkly.

Here's the oddity: you know how these places have 'foaming brushes' and the like, right? Well, this one had a foaming *gun* which spat foam all over the car. Okay, that was kind of fun.

But.

The foam was multi-colored. They kept injecting a rotating palette of dye into it, so it'd be blue, then green, they yellow, then orange, red, purple, and back to blue. Cute.

Until the wind blows through the *&%($ car wash stall, and blows it all back on you. My shirt is covered with red and blue splatter. I'm *hoping* they come out in the wash.

Why, oh why, would anyone think that adding dye to a soap gun was a good idea?

Comments

[night-monkey.livejournal.com]

because it wows the customer, and they'll call their friends and be like 'dude, that was awesome! I've never seen that many colors of foam in one place in all of my life! SRSLY, you gotta go, K?'

[franktheavenger.livejournal.com]

Probably to try to convince the kids washing the car is fun. :p

[georgmi.livejournal.com]

Why, oh why would anyone think that wearing a shirt they didn't want ruined to wash the car was a good idea? :)

[kickaha.livejournal.com]

Because water and (dye-free) soap are expected, but dye is not? :P :)

Luckily, it came right out. :)

[georgmi.livejournal.com]

Actually, I wouldn't expect the soaps used in those places to be particularly friendly to fabrics generally; they have to be strong enough to clean off tar and other, less savory things that get deposited on cars (cf. the difference between a seagull and a Texas oil tycoon).

IOW, the dye may well be the least of your problems. :)

[kickaha.livejournal.com]

You such a ray of fucking sunshine. :D

[georgmi.livejournal.com]

Sorry, occupational hazard. I get paid an embarrassing amount of money to find the worst-case scenario and wrap it up in a bright blue bow.

And you love me for it. :)

[kickaha.livejournal.com]

Huh. I thought that was indigestion. Silly me.

:D

[georgmi.livejournal.com]

Yeah, love usedta make my stomach hurt too, but it got better when I acknowledged and shared my feelings.

Go ahead, open up. It's OK. Nobody's going to judge you.

Record you and put you up on YouTube, sure. But no judging, I promise.