To know me is to know that I wax lyrical and swear vociferously at my car in equal measure. My lovely car, a red Chrysler Colt built when Noah walked out of the ark and Moses wore short pants. It leaks in the winter on the driver's side and makes nice squelchy sounds when I change gears. In spring little plants grow next to the clutch where I've tracked in mud. The back is a neverending morass of dog hair; the back window (attached to the door that doesn't work) is a morass of dog spit. The boot lock ripped away from the metal (probably because of rust) and is now tied down with some wire. This doesn't help the already flooded tool box which houses a couple of miserable rusty spanners and a hapless yale lock that only The Father knows the reason for.
My car, my beloved car, which for several months now has refused to go up De Waal drive in anything other than second. Which tackles speedbumps with a will but crumples on the way. Which has a second hand petrol cap that can only be replaced by me because I have the knack but makes all the petrol guys paranoid because now they think I don't trust them. Which had an irreplacable oil cap (although the tow bar cover worked for a couple of months) and now has one that cost me an arm and a leg and a fortune in petrol, driving around from spare shop to spare shop, where seedy men checked me out or gave me bewildered looks. An oil cap that still doesn't fit and has to have a bit of cloth fastened under it so it will stay shut.
My car, my beloved car, which had a nice service last week but stopped in a spectacular fashion on the M3 the other morning when I was already an hour late for work (typical). I had to call a tow truck, take it to a mechanic, the whole tooty. It's fixed now for the forseeable future.
The best part of the story? And why I love my decrepit, heap of shit, gift from my awesome parents car? Because the mechanic said when they test drove her she backfired so badly that people were ducking on the pavements. I would have paid good money to see that.
PATTOTE - Better living through rusty red cars with cool wing mirrors.
6 comments:
I like the Rocket.
Hey, you never met my 'Blue Peril' - the car with two windscreen wipers, one on the front, and one on the back, gears like porridge, and rust galore.
Like the Rocket, that car had CHARACTER. Makes up for a wide range of irritations.
TOM thinks:
Damm, that bit of dynamite I hid under the bonnet of the rocket in the hope the heat would ignite it and make the entire thing go up in flames did no damage...and was taken as a backfire? That thing truely is indestructable. Plan F (A B C D and E all seemed to have failed.)
Foiled again... considering I've been its sole driver for the last year, I'm quite surprised that it's intact as well. I've only taken out an indicator so far. What are the chances that the car would run indefinitely but I'll cut its life short by crashing it into something large? Like a cow?
I'd say pretty slim, considering the size of the cow population in Cape Town.
Ha id like you to recall a small moment on the eve of christmas when apparently of your own volition you drove into a curb and nearly crashed a light pole. i bow to your mighty driving skills.Mwah
Post a Comment