The sight of any vehicle caked in road salt is pain-inducing, especially when it belongs to me or someone in my family.

I can almost feel the steel-eating grime chewing away at the frame and fenders. I want to scream: “GET IT OFF!”

That can be a big challenge when the temperature is 5 below zero and the local car wash is closed.

So my bright spot this week came with a Sunday afternoon high near 40 degrees, when I took a pocketful of quarters and my daughter’s pickup truck to the car wash.

The salt block on wheels looks like a truck again, and that makes me smile.

Have a Bright Spot to share? Send it to Managing Editor Julia Lerner (lernerj@denison.edu). Tell us about the moment that made you smile in under 200 words, and try to include a photograph. We’ll add it to our growing list of Bright Spots on TheReportingProject.org!

Alan Miller

Alan Miller teaches journalism and writes for TheReportingProject.org, the nonprofit news organization of Denison University's Journalism Program. He is the former executive editor of The Columbus Dispatch and former Regional Editor for Gannett's 21-newsroom USAToday Network Ohio.