I have cleaned more objects with jets of water in PowerWash Simulator than you have had hot dinners. This is not hyperbole. I have done some basic maths (or math, if you prefer) to prove my power washing versus hot dinner credentials*. As a result, I can absolutely put myself forward as a power wash expert. A phenomenon, even. My friends could recommend me for power washing on LinkedIn. Maybe one day I’ll even live out my dream and host a webinar about the power of the yellow nozzle! Unironically!
In fact, let’s do a trial run of my webinar in this article. The webinar is called:
The yellow nozzle: Overpowered friend or overpowered foe?
Slide 1:
(Image credit: FuturLab)
Webinar opens with a crash zoom on the yellow nozzle, maybe a fanfare of some kind.
I will pause here so people can get their gasps and sighs out of the way. There will be medics standing by in case anyone faints.
“Friends!” I will say. “The time has come for us to acknowledge the sheer power of the yellow nozzle.”
Slide 2:
(Image credit: FuturLab)
Maybe we could use a starwipe transition to this slide? I mean, video editing peaked in about 1994, so I’d like to stick to editing techniques you’d find on candid camera shows from about 30 years ago if at all possible.
Once we have starwiped to slide 2, I will point to each of the other nozzles.
“Because,” I will say, continuing my point from slide 1, “when you own the yellow nozzle, every single other option becomes redundant.”
There will probably be some boos from the green diehards in the audience. We could have security on standby in case they get rowdy.
I point at red:
“The focused power of red offers a giddy kick,” I will say, “But yellow with an extension handle gives the same reach and better spread! And it’s not like red cuts through rust like a demon, either. Just give that patch a few goes with the yellow and you’ll be fine!”
I point at the soap nozzle, then the turbo nozzle:
“This one is more hassle and expense than it’s worth. You can remove the same grime by running a yellow over the area a few times without eating into your profits! And you can replace the wiggly jet of the turbo nozzle by equipping yellow, pressing C and then shaking your arm a bit!”
I point at the white nozzle:
“I’m not even going to dignify this with a comment,” I say. The crowd goes wild with laughter and applause.
Finally, I point to green:
“Look, I know some of you won’t want to hear this, but green just isn’t good enough!” There will be boos, but I will hold my ground. These people need to hear the truth.
“I know you think that green offers a superior spread at the cost of a little power and range,” I continue. “But let me introduce you to a little life hack…”
Slide 3:
(Image credit: FuturLab)
There will definitely be at least one person who faints here, so the medics should be prepared.
“I call it… The vertical mowing technique!” I announce, then pause while the applause thunders through the stadium. I’m not sure why we are in a stadium given this is a webinar. Maybe it was oversubscribed or something?
“What you do is you rotate the jet so the spray pattern is vertical,” I explain, “Then you crouch as low as possible, moving the jet in a windscreen wiper fashion in front of you.”
People are in tears! They’ve never seen anything like it. I’m a power wash EMPRESS! They’re chanting my name—they may even storm the stage, trying to lift me onto their shoulders!
“Literally everything the other nozzles do can be replaced by yellow!” I shout, trying to make myself heard above the din. “Its power is unlimited!”
More cheers!
“Its power is unrivalled!”
Even more cheers!
“Its power is… TERRIBLE”
The crowd is wrongfooted—I’ve thrown them a curveball and they don’t know how to react! Surely I was just praising yellow to the rafters? What could be terrible about that?
Slide 4:
(Image credit: FuturLab)
“I mean, if I can do everything with yellow, what’s the point of any of the other nozzles?” I ask. “Where’s the smug satisfaction of knowing the exact right tool for the job if you can just achieve the same result by blasting a wall with yellow?”
At this point, I expect some smart aleck to say, “Er, Pip, isn’t that what the challenges are for? Don’t you only get a good rating on those if you know your nozzles inside out?” I feel like this is the sort of person the security team should try to hustle out of the stadium if at all possible.
If security cannot silence this person in time, I will simply say “Yeah, but the challenges are HARD and I don’t want to have to be careful about my water consumption or work to a specific time limit!”
“Pip,” they will say, “It sounds like you are complaining about being able to play using only the yellow nozzle, but also you don’t like any of the solutions which mean you actually optimise your usage of the other nozzles!”
“EXACTLY!” I will shout. “Now you’re getting it!”
“Why did you need a webinar to say that?” they will ask. “Could you not go on Reddit like everyone else?”
“I…”
“Or at least pick a point of view?”
“Well, no because I…”
“And why is this webinar in a stadium? Surely the whole point is that I can attend from home.”
“Ah, you see, um…”
“And why is there MERCH?”
“THIS WEBINAR IS OVER,” I will announce in a completely calm and not at all panicked way.
I think this is probably the point when I will get my security team to carry me to my waiting limo and drive me away at high speed.
(Image credit: FuturLab)
Anyway, my point is that the yellow nozzle is massively overpowered and obliterates the need for the other nozzles. This is sad because I’d like to be forced to master my craft and become the queen of nozzle usage, but I also don’t want to have to learn anything or change anything after spending about 260 hours brute-forcing cleanliness with a yellow nozzle.
Oh, and looking back on this practice webinar, I think I’ll just end it during slide three while people are cheering and lifting me onto their shoulders.
*A study from 2014 put the average age of PC gamers at 38 so that’s our base age. I have taken the weaning age of babies to be 6 months, so you’ve had 37.5 years of solid food. I have assumed one hot dinner per day starting THE VERY SECOND you began to experiment with solids. You have also never decided to have a cold salad in a heatwave. As someone who drinks hot tea to cool down in the summer, I understand this.
Anyway, my approach assigns you, the average PC gamer, the highest number of hot dinners allowable. That’s 37.5 x 365, which gives 13,687.5 hot dinners. We then add 9 more dinners for leap years, and I’ll round up that weird half dinner you had into a full dinner because I’m generous. Ultimately, that leaves us with 13,697 hot dinners.
I have played over 260 hours of PowerWash Simulator. I have completed it several times over, and have replayed some of my favourite levels maybe 10 times or more. With this in mind, I’ve DEFINITELY played every level in the game at least three times, and that’s not counting DLC. There are 5,765 objects in these levels, and 3 x 5765 = 17,295. That’s more than 13,697. QED, yo!
I would go further, and try to prove that I have out-cleaned your entire life expectancy, but my fingers hurt from all the counting.
