Magic windshield wipers

At one time, I had a car (a 1976 Mercury Capri II, the picture is from Wikipedia, mine was white) that not only had regular windshield wipers and intermittent wipers but also had a switch on the floor that you could push that would cause the wipers to make one pass over the windshield. I didn't think too much about it after a while. I just used it for those times when the regular wipers and intermittent wipers were just too fast for a light mist or rain that started and stopped often. I hate the sound wipers make when they rub over a not-quite-wet-enough windshield. This way I could keep my hands on the wheel (especially in the tricky conditions of a wet road) and wipe when I needed to improve the view.

One day I was giving a friend a ride and it was one of those days when the rain came in fits and starts. I was absent-mindedly hitting the wiper switch on the floor when I needed it. After a while, my friend said, "That's amazing. I've never seen a wiper that could do that." He thought something was sensing the degree of wetness of the windshield and triggering a pass of the wipers. Or maybe he thought something could sense that you couldn't see clearly through the windshield. Well, yes. That something was me.

I guess I could have played a joke on him and acted as if it was all automatic. But I couldn't make fun of him that way. I told him the truth that I was doing it. I'm just not a very fun person.

I was reminded of this story from a short post on Raymond Chen's The Old New Thing blog - Sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology. They had more fun with their situation.