Washing Windows in the Rain

One recent, rainy day, Daughter Number 2 and I were taking a brisk stroll down a Boston street when we came across a window washer running his squeegee down a storefront window. DN2 astutely remarked that washing a window in the rain seemed a rather futile task. Of course, it needs to be mentioned here that both of us are not expert in the honorable and ancient art of window washing, but nevertheless we felt convinced that a rainy, windswept day is probably one of your biggest enemies to a clean window. When she said it, I immediately caught onto the phrase “washing windows in the rain,” and felt it should be an expression, something on a par with “gathering wool” or “whistling past the graveyard.” Doesn’t it sound like the sort of thing your grandmother might say? Couldn’t you hear her admonish your little brother to “put that thing down and leave it alone; you’re only washing windows in the rain”?

Washing windows in the rain indicates, simply, that perfectly good effort put toward a given task is doomed to yield no desired or satisfying result. Washing windows in the rain is completely ineffective and apparently without merit, save the one dubious benefit of giving the window washer a brief and utterly false sense of productivity. It’s a case where you ought to know better, but you do it anyway. Searching my mind for a well-known expression similar to that, I came up with “rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic,” but the two aren’t really that close, as the Titanic one strongly implies empty-headed, pointless incompetence in a time of dire emergency, while washing windows in the rain is more of an everyday, forgivable brand of empty-headedness and pointlessness. After all, one may survive washing one’s windows in the rain, but wasting time rearranging deck chairs while a whole ocean liner is going down is roughly the equivalent of, say, washing an entire glass-and-steel skyscraper in a typhoon.

Can you think of instances in your life when you’ve washed windows in the rain? In my job as a graphic designer, I know there have been many times, while developing concepts for ads or brochures, where I’ve found myself going down the wrong street but can’t stop myself; I’m perfectly aware the client won’t buy this or that, but I like the idea so much I pursue it anyway. One may call that knowingly washing windows in the rain. A supreme example of willful window washing comes from a childhood memory: in my hometown, there was an intersection notorious for hopeless congestion during rush hour. Often times riding home with my father in the family station wagon he would impulsively pull the car out of a backed-up, left-turn-only lane to lead us onto a bewildering, torturous, labyrinthine route with the sole aim of eventually attacking the same clogged intersection from another direction. As he did this, he admitted he was saving no time, and was perhaps even adding to it, but at least the act of putting the car into motion gave him a feeling of progress.

A sentimental form of rainy day window washing might be setting a place at the dinner table for a departed loved one who, in all probability, will not show up. Certainly no one expects to coax dear, deceased Uncle Ernie into reincorporating himself by offering up the appetizing and mingled aroma of broiled flank steak and potatoes au gratin, but some comfort might come to his survivors by following such an irrational custom. And then there is Zen window washing, where the mere act of soaking a pane of glass with a ragful of glass cleaner and squeegeeing it off is an end unto itself; one is concerned only with the doing, and whether the window remains clean or not is secondary. I suggest this form of window washing is very deep. A perfect example of Zen window washing is contained in the manifesto of an obscure school of art that existed briefly in the early part of the 20th century: it contended art should be transitory and, after an exhibition of so many days, a painting or sculpture should be destroyed, never to be seen again. Another example can be found in a science fiction story I read many years ago that had the main character do a very curious thing: to unwind and blow off some stress, he went one morning to a woodworking shop, plunked down some serious money for lumber and tools, and spent all day constructing a table, a piece of fine furniture. He cut and sanded and rasped and planed and so on; he lovingly fashioned the legs on a lathe, and carefully measured and joined all the pieces just so; then, in the end, after admiring what his skill and patience produced, he summarily cast the table into a furnace.

What are some other examples of washing windows in the rain? I think our president can come up with a few, starting with that great, glass edifice otherwise known as Iraq. How about solving our energy needs by drilling for more oil? That is advanced window washing. Or a Palestinian suicide bomber thinking one more violent act will finally make the Israelis wise up and leave? Futility at its finest. Closer to home, I can recall how my father used to patiently explain to my grandmother, who had advanced Alzheimer’s, the names of all her grandchildren over and over again, as if, through repetition, she’d eventually come to her senses and remember. Some serious Windex there.

Question du jour: what examples of washing windows in the rain can you think of? Don’t you agree we should adopt that as a common expression? I challenge you to put it into a sentence sometime this week.

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I’ve gotten very lax about responding to comments on my blog (which, by the way, are all read by me and very much appreciated), but here is a comment from my last post that deserves special recognition. At one point in the post, I brought up the subject of last words and how not all are probably as dramatic or quotable as the people saying them might have wished. Here is what Beth wrote:

“I think about ‘last words’ a lot. I wonder if that’s the neurotic in me. You know, when Mother Theresa died the doctor said she complained of pain and the nun at her side said Mother Theresa actually said, "I love Jesus." So, I think when you’re famous, the people who love you most do some major editing.

“‘I just shat myself’ becomes ‘I see a bright light and a beautiful angel with outstretched arms.’”



I laughed myself silly for about ten minutes after reading that one.