Washing Cars & Wasting Time by John C. Oliva
Publisher: Orange Hat Publishing
Publication Date: March 2013
Categories: Personal Memoirs, Essays
Source: John C. Oliva
Description:
Have you ever been given the impromptu offer to buy a crossbow from a random stranger? Has your life ever been threatened over $1.75 in quarters? Can you say that you have ever been so bored that sifting through broken glass and cigarette butts constituted an accepted pastime? Those are just a sampling of the many adventures that I had while working as an attendant at Speedee Car Wash in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Despite all of the abrasive customers; cold, tiring winter hours; hot, boredom-filled, and even longer summer hours, I got some great stories to tell out of those years. And they are compiled here in Washing Cars & Wasting Time. Oh yeah…and we managed to wash a couple of cars amidst all of the chaos as well.
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| About John |
My Giffy Thoughts:
This memoir is set in Wisconsin. That makes this Wisconsinite happy.
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| If this graphic doesn’t remind you of your MySpace days…well then you’re too damn young |
John tells some hilarious tales about his days working at his family’s car wash.
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| I was doing a whole lot of this. Maybe a bit less creepily. |
You honestly wouldn’t believe some of the people he had to deal with.
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| Ha ha. Dummy. |
Should you buy it? Should you read it? Should I share a signed copy with one you?
Leave a comment telling me why you’d like to win this book. I’ll draw a name at random in a week or so.
The Relentless Reader 
You found some awesome gifs for this review! The car wash one is especially perfect. LOL!!
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Oh, this sounds like a lot of fun! I love humorous memoirs. Actually, I just noticed you're one of the judges for Shirley You Jest contest and as one of the sponsors who will review the winners books, I'm excited to see what you pick out 🙂
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I just got some serious giggles over your MySpace glitter. I love your gif reviews the most.
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First of all, Sheldon rocks! 🙂 Second, my husband has said that some jobs would lead to some interesting stories, so it sounds like he's right (darn! don't tell him!!). I think it would be fun to read about the 'inside' of a car wash and get the dirt on how good or bad customers can be.
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I did a little happy dance when I found that one, lol.
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Hey, that's right I am! Thanks for mentioning that girl. I want to put their button up. DONE!
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Ha ha! I saw that and MySpace was the very first thing I thought of. Man I used to ROCK MySpace 😉 Thanks!
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LOL, I won't tell him, even though he's definitely right 😉
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Yes, the car wash scene gif above is surprisingly appropriate to the book given what happens in the chapter \”The Degreaser\”. I wonder if the guy in the gif also said \”Now my truck's door is all bent up, and my arm kind of hurts.\” just like the guy at Speedee Car Wash said. 😉
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Gina…you bring up an interesting angle. I have gotten some feedback that my book is more of a “guy’s book”. That was news to me. If there is an opposite to “chick lit”, I thought it was more along the lines of Tucker Max or Adam Carolla rather than “Washing Cars & Wasting Time”. Any thoughts? Jennifer and Monika…what do you think?
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News to me as well. I suppose if we HAD to separate books into man books or woman books this would be a man book? Because it's written by a man? Thankfully we don't have to do that, lol.
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I can't decide which is my favorite — the MySpace glitterati or the car wash gif! Great job, Jen, on making reviews F-U-N!
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MySpace? What's that? 😉
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Lol, thanks!! 😀
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Oh man, you darn whippersnappers! 😉
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