a mechanical threesome. (hoot)

By Alison
9 November, 2009
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They say that bad things come in threes. I don’t know why that is. Google doesn’t know why that is. (Google doesn’t actually “know” anything, since it’s just a bunch of code magnetised in the shape of a huge statue of Bob Geldof – bet you didn’t know that.) According to some random guy going by the handle of “sleidman” bad things come in three because three is your brain’s favourite number, and so if two bad things happen, then your brain wants a third thing to come along just make up the numbers.

Sleidman, what are you ON? My brain did not use the power of ESP to short out the lights in George. I quite fancy the number none when it comes to shit happening. So let’s ignore Sleidman, and his theory of threeativity, as well as his other snippets of random information (apparently his first kiss was “amazing , extra good , delicious” Did we want to know that? No.)

My threesome is a mechanical tango of extremely musical proportions, which started on a thursday night on the way to orchestra. Our car, a plastic renault megane with all the personality of a tonka toy (and probably the safety features too) had been making a ticking noise that sounded like the fan hitting something. You know those noises that you think you should get someone to take a look at before it’s too late… And then don’t? This was one of those noises. It had got louder and louder in the past week. Then about half way between home and Orpington I heard a stranger sound not unlike what you’d hear if you ran over a cat. Without the yowl. But oddly the ticking noise suddenly stopped, so I called home to ask Mr Boxer Short’s advice.

Me: Darling, you’ll never believe what happened, that awful noise in the car has just stopped. Now there is a strange slapping noise… what should I do?
Mr BS: I think you should try drive home and then take George to rehearsal instead.
Me: Thanks for that advice, I think I’ll try and keep going instead, then ring the RAC when I get there. Oh, and by the way – the power steering seems to have completely disappeared.
Mr BS: Why’d you bother asking me then? Wait, WHAT?

So I continued on in late rush hour traffic, with no power steering, and a rhythmic slapping on my undercarriage that in any other circumstances might have been kinky. And the car didn’t like me. Not one bit.

It started juddering after a while, once I’d got a mile or so further on, and was irretrievabley stuck in stopped traffic down a hill with no sideroads. The radio died suddenly, then the headlights. I was stuck between two buses, and had to put on my hazards and roll along.

Luckily for me, someone put a vetinary surgery on the corner and flattened a parking lot out front, so I rolled on into that and stopped. I was exactly 1 mile away from where I wanted to be.

I rang the RAC. Now, Mr Boxer Shorts has been a member of the RAC since he was about 2. And wore short pants. (He still wears short pants.) There is loyalty to the RAC in spades here. But loyalty begins to waver when you get told that the waiting time for a call out is 2 hours. TWO FRICKING HOURS??? That’s how long my rehearsal would have been. The rehearsal that was 1 mile away in downtown Orpington. I begged the woman to hurry. I am alone! I am single! No, well, not in that way. I am in ORPINGTON for God’s sake! Hurry!

After a moment of thinking, and a 2 degree drop in temperature in the car I rang them back to bargain with them. I figured I might as well walk to rehearsal (google said 18 minutes) and then if they could give me 20 minutes noticed, I’d be able to walk back in time. “Sorry, it will be ten minutes notice,” said the automaton. But then she warmed up a bit – “I could organise to have someone at your car at a certain time though.” Brilliant I thought – and we arranged for 9.45pm.

I set off walking down the road. A flute might not make much of a weapon against an attacker, but I am pretty sure that a few high notes on the piccolo could do irreversible damage to ear drums and be so truly uncool that they’d literally want to run away to avoid being seen with me. Despite that, I ran, rather than walk.

So I arrived at rehearsal, hot, sweaty, smelling acrid. And sweet talked the only person without a sense of smell into driving me back to my car afterwards. Sweet. But at 9.30pm, the RAC rang me back to inform me that no-one would be at my car at 9.45pm, as they were at least an hour away. Oh joy.

My very kind taxi driving friend took me home and fed me cheese and biscuits, while we made painful small talk. She tried to offer me wine, but FOOL that I am, I turned it down. 40 minutes later the RAC rang again. A jolly voice informed me that I had another hour to wait. I was too tired to even seethe properly!

Luckily, the next call was only 20 minutes later, and was from the patrol who was coming out to me. So I was driven back to my car in time to watch the RAC van totally miss the turn and drive on past while I jumped up and down on the spot. An hour later I arrived home with my totally dead car on tow. Why oh WHY did I turn down that wine? We pushed it into a parking spot, and there it sat for 3 weeks.

We have two cars. Loosely defined as cars. George, mentioned early on in this article is the alternative to the plastic Renault. (Did I mention that I’d rather have an Audi or a Saab? I don’t mind driving sponsored cars by the way…)

George is a VW camper. He’s been up and down the alps, and round Europe in a route reminiscent of south america, which included a ferry to sweden. He has class, he has personality. He doesn’t have enough seat belts, and he doesn’t have heating. But we love him anyway. He also doesn’t have power steering either, the two of them are now equal on that footing.

We also have a scooter. So we are a three vehicle family. One down, two to go.

Did I mention that this was a mechanical threesome? I got kinda hung up on the first thing. The second one was more gruesome. Mr Boxer Shorts was knocked off the scooter by a pimply faced twat in his girlfriend’s car who didn’t see him, and was “waking from a dream”. Dream in your bed, dickwad, not on the road.

Mr Boxer Shorts is ok, thankfully. A slight groin strain – nothing you can’t get on a saturday night when the kids are in bed and you’ve got a bottle of wine to spare.

Mr Spotty Face wanted to sort the problems out with some cash in hand. He thought £350 would cover the bike. He wasn’t best pleased to learn that my hubby had landed squarely on his laptop. The extra cushioned bag providing great protection for his back, but less so for the laptop, which is now bent in a nice back shaped arc. Mr Spotty Face disputed that the laptop was even in the bag at the time. And he got bent out of shape (like the laptop, only spottier) that we were going to claim for the helmet as well, and asked – if we didn’t want it – could he have to give to his little brother. “Depends how much you dislike your little brother, mate” said I. “How do I know he was wearing THAT helmet?” he conjectured petulantly. Give me a BREAK!

By that point – in the middle of a discussion the next day at our house – I took over negotiations. He may have thought that Mr BS was a soft touch who he could bend to his will, but he didn’t make allowances for the bolshy aussie who won’t let go. When he kept trying to come back to points we’d already hashed through I eventually laid out his options in front of him, told him he’d have to wait and booted him out the door.

And now we need the third bad thing to come along, which apparently my brain is desperate for, in order to complete the trilogy. This one is yet again musical. With no car or scooter to ride, I opted for driving George to orchestra this week. George is nearly as old as me, and has similar flatulence problems. He’s also wired up like a victorian house built by Bergholt Stuttley Johnson that has been buried in sand for 50 years.

I was driving along in complete darkness, as the dashboard lights have been off for a while, when it occurred to me that the dashboard lights were on a dimmer switch, and if I rotated the light knob I’d probably get them back. So I rotated the knob.

I didn’t get any lights back, but instead got a zzzzzt and a smell of burning that was slightly off-putting. I would have opened the window to clear the smell, but the knob on that handle pinged off a week ago and can’t be found. Luckily the smell did disappate, and by the time I arrived it was no longer noticable.

Fast forward two hours, and I came out of rehearsal to find that I no longer had headlights. Or taillights. It’s 9.30 at night, and I have no way of legally driving home. And everyone else has already left. I have to call the RAC – AGAIN. They have really sorted out their response time. Not. It’s going to be 90 minutes before anyone gets to me.

So I am sitting in the back of the van, wrapped in two sleeping bags, in the middle of an estate in Orpington. Funbags. The RAC guy arrives after 90 minutes and manages to rewire the burnt out bits so that I can drive home. Now, it’s always good once they turn up – I can’t fault the quality of service given by the guys, but to be honest – if there are not enough guys to provide quality coverage then the service isn’t good enough.

Anyone got the number for the AA?