Rags vs Water smack down: Rags win!

My husband and I spent a lot of time in the car lately, driving back and forth to see some of our distant children and killing lots and lots of bugs on the grille and hood of our car in the process.  When we finally arrived back home, the car was now speckled.

A bug-speckled car is pretty gross (and I'm guessing the bugs agree, not that they could express an opinion about it any longer).  So I set about to clean the car as it was parked along the street.

I used a technique that I learned about long ago from a book called "Speed Cleaning": it's one that is not only speedy -- as the title promises -- but also uses a heck of a lot less water than the way I used to clean floors and other large surfaces (like cars).  And basically, that technique is "more rags, less water".

I took two small buckets (basically, large bowls) out to my car.  When I started, one bucket contained some warm soapy water and about 20 rags made from cut-up t-shirts; the other bucket was empty. I'd use a rag to clean one section of a car until the rag was filthy, and then I'd dump the dirty rag into the dry bucket and pull out a new, clean rag. 

In particular, I never paused to rinse a dirty rag, and I never put a dirty rag into the soapy-water bucket, so the water stayed clean.  Hence, I spent zero time cleaning the rags, only cleaning the car.  And that one little bucket with its quart or two of water was the only water that went to cleaning the car: much less water than spraying with hoses.

For the particularly buggy places that needed a bit of extra scrubbing,  I also nabbed a small bowl of water and a scrubber to help loosen up the junk; I didn't mind dipping the scrubber back into the increasingly dirty water because once the junk was loosened, I could then wipe it off with a clean rag.  The job of the scrubber is to prepare the way for the rag, not to actually clean the car.

One of the things that I have learned to appreciate about this technique is that it's a lot easier to stop in the middle of a cleaning job and come back, if that is necessary. I can use a few clean rags to clean part of a kitchen floor, and there's no giant bucket on wheels blocking my way needing attention if I then decide to go take care of other business. 

When I finished, I had a small pile of dirty rags that then went straight into the laundry room; the washing machine is a much more efficient use of water and time for cleaning those rags out than I am, after all. I also had a small bucket of clean soapy water and a car that has been debugged and prettified. So satisfying!