The Car Wash Octopus Monster (and Other Horrible Dad Jokes That Won’t Die)



Years ago, I was working in Suffern, New York, as a fresh-faced estimator at a body shop built inside an old firehouse. It was a weird, gritty place—charming in the way that asbestos and oil-stained floor drains can be. The owner was smart, successful, and yelled at me every single day. I think he thought that was “mentorship.” And maybe it was. Honestly, if he’d just slowed down long enough to explain why he was yelling, I probably could’ve learned a lot faster. But I picked it up anyway, mostly by absorbing stress like a shop towel.

One of the strangest parts of the job was this: when a car was done, it was my responsibility to deliver it to the customer. That meant final inspection, collecting the deductible, answering questions, and making sure the car didn’t look like it had been parked in a haunted sawmill.

The problem? We didn’t wash our own cars. Not because we didn’t want to, but because we couldn’t. I don’t remember if it was a village ordinance, a plumbing issue, or just a strange hill the owner chose to die on, but washing cars was off-limits at the shop. So instead, we had to drive each finished car across the state line into New Jersey to a car wash the owner had some kind of deal with.

It was mildly ridiculous—but also kind of nice. I got to road-test the car, leave the shop for a few minutes, maybe grab a soda. But it also meant I had to race back in time for the customer’s scheduled pickup. No room for error. No scratches, no surprises. Which brings me to the true villain of this story:

The Car Wash Octopus Monster.

This wasn’t just any car wash. This was a high-pressure automatic tunnel of doom, hiding a beast that struck when you least expected it. A monster made of rollers, spinning brushes, dripping foam, and what I can only describe as hunger.

Now, not every car got attacked. But every once in a while—for no reason at all—the Car Wash Octopus Monster would lash out.

It would eat a freshly retaped door molding like it was chewing gum.
It would peel off a custom pinstripe we’d just painted by hand.
It even ripped off an entire antenna once and bent the fender like a soda can.


So every time I sat in that line, waiting to enter the lair, I’d start whispering prayers to no one in particular. I’d try to buy favor with sacrifices—mostly French fries. I’d throw a few out the window onto the pavement like I was feeding pigeons at a cursed zoo.

And I swear, it helped. Sometimes.

Enter: Pocket Ghost

 I’ve got kids. One day, we’re flipping through photos on my phone, and a weird blurry picture shows up. One I definitely didn’t take. Maybe it was like a pocket dial. Maybe it was random button-mashing.

Or maybe—just maybe—it was the work of Pocket Ghost.

That’s the name I gave the glitchy little gremlin who lives inside my phone. He’s responsible for those 3AM accidental calls to your ex-coworker, or the time you somehow texted your boss a message that read, “sdjkghajferret.”

The kids hated this joke. Naturally, that meant I kept it alive. Fed it. Nurtured it. Gave it a backstory.



And that’s when Pocket Ghost met his best friend: the Car Wash Octopus Monster.

Together, they formed a legendary duo of unseen chaos. Pocket Ghost lived in phones. The Monster lived in car washes. And their mission was simple: create minor annoyances and unexplained tech failures for the rest of time.

A Dad Joke Becomes a Legacy

Now my stepdaughter Megan is about to have a baby, and I’ve been thinking—maybe these dumb, persistent jokes have a second life ahead of them.

What if they became a children’s book?
What if Pocket Ghost and the Car Wash Octopus Monster had their own illustrated adventure?

Not because I think the world needs another bedtime story about poltergeists and chrome-eating tentacle beasts. But because our family would get it. Because 15 years later, every time I pull up to an automatic car wash, I still think about that monster. And every time I see a blurry photo I didn’t mean to take, I smile and blame the ghost.

Some stories don’t die. They just evolve into multigenerational inside jokes.

Sometimes even the kids, mostly Adults now, will make a pocket ghost Reference and I can't help but smile and get that warm feeling of pride.

And if that’s not the mark of a truly horrible dad joke… I don’t know what is.

Bonus: Sneak Peek at the Book Title I’ll Probably Self-Publish Someday

“Pocket Ghost and the Car Wash Octopus Monster”
A Sticky, Soapy, Slightly Spooky Tale of Friendship, Chaos, and French Fries.


 So maybe I was just a nervous rookie with a stack of deductibles in my back pocket, feeding French fries to a phantom beast in a New Jersey car wash—but to me, that monster was real. And now, thanks to a few bad phone pics, a lot of dad jokes, and one new baby on the way, it’s about to become legend. Because the only thing more powerful than a pocket ghost or a car wash octopus monster… is a story that refuses to be forgotten.

Long live the monsters—and the memories they leave behind.

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