Aaaand…the Next Installment!

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On Tuesday the Knackered Car had a new fuel pump, fuel filter and fuel-hose-connection-thingy. Not sure why; there was no bloody fuel left!

The Ex drove it to my house again and asked for a lift back to the garage.

Are we experiencing deja vu? I think so.

‘Are you absolutely certain it’s been fixed?’ I asked.

‘Yes.’

‘Are you absolutely certain it’s not still pissing petrol?’

‘Yes.’

‘Are you absolutely certain it’s safe to drive?’

‘Yes!’

‘But what if you’re wrong? What if you only think you’re certain it’s been fixed? What if I drive you back and the Knackered Car is still leaking fuel and it catches fire and explodes in this huge, spectacular, Jason Statham-style fireball? We’ll both die a grisly death and the boys will be orphans! I can’t do it! Don’t ask me! Who’d look after Youngest son if we’re both flambéed?’

‘Eldest son. He’s legally an adult now.’

‘Yes!’ I shrieked, ‘but he’s four hours away! And it’d take another ten hours to hunt down which pub he’s in! And Youngest son needs feeding! Tonight!’

‘Mum, it’s fine,’ said Youngest. ‘I’ll just eat noodles ’til he gets here.’

Well that’s okay, then…

The Ex and I set off down the garden path. Youngest called a farewell greeting from the door:

‘Die, Mum and Dad! Whoops! I meant to say Bye…’

We made it there and back without frying. You probably guessed that much since I’m obviously here and typing… I parked away from our house and other parked vehicles just in case Knackered Car decided to spontaneously combust during the night.

And yesterday, on Wednesday, I leapt inside, armed with Bon Jovi’s Greatest Hits, ready to collect Youngest from after-school-art-club and…

…the bastard thing wouldn’t start!

I give up, really!

PS And yes, it was just a sad excuse for another photo of JS!  😉

Knackered Car Recovery – Part 17…

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Goodness! There’s so much to tell! I may have to write a series of mini posts today instead of one great, burbling long one.

Is that okay? Or is that cheating?

Hey! It’s my blog! Who cares!

Okay, first up – news on the Knackered Car Recovery story:

On Monday it was fixed – a new coil, distributer cap and rotary… something – arm? Blade? Clothes dryer?

Anyway, the Ex picked it up from the garage, drove to my house and asked me to drop him back to the garage so that he could collect his car. Got that? Good.

As I was driving, the engine kept spluttering and burping, bouncing us backwards and forwards so much, I stressed about who would look after Youngest son when we were both laid up with whiplash. Or concussion. Or both.

‘Umm… I don’t wanna be picky, and I know we’re making progress ‘cos we’re actually moving without the aid of a tow-rope, but are you sure they said it was fixed?’

‘Yes! The engine’s probably just cold and damp. Just give her some welly.’

(NB: ‘Give her some welly’ – a technical phrase, derived from Latin, meaning ‘Stand on the gas, baby!’)

I’ve already told you about Cornish ‘roads’, haven’t I? Think winding, pot-holed, narrow lanes. Or wide footpaths. Usually splattered with mud and stinky, sticky cow pats. And mountains of horse doop, still hot and steaming. And, quite often, a tractor will hit a hole and bump half the contents of its trailer across the road.

Go around a bend and slalom your way through seventeen cabbages, four cauliflowers, two hay bales, a gaggle of geese and one dead badger.

And give it some welly! Yeah, right!

Well, I tried but I’m really not cut out for rally driving. It was like, Rev the engine, scream the brakes, dodge the obstacle, rev the engine, bounce off headrest, lurch as car hiccups, bounce off windscreen, rev, screech, dodge, rev, bounce, hiccup, lurch, bounce, swear, rev, cuss, screech, make disparaging comments about your Ex’s ability to drive a car, shout, dodge, bounce, swear, make disparaging comments about the size of your Ex’s nose, swear some more…

 ‘Umm…I hate to be picky, but this car’s stinking of petrol…’

‘It’s because you’ve been revving so much. System’s got flooded.’

Oh. Okay.

It was dark when we got to the garage. The Ex asked me to pull up bumper to bumper, with my lights on, so that he could fiddle with a headlight bulb on his car.

‘Trouble is, the engine’s likely to cut out, so keep the revs up.’

Oh. Okay.

So there I was, revving the nuts off my car, and all the time, the smell of petrol was getting stronger.

I threw open my door, and gasped air like an old woman with a sixty-a-day habit.

‘Hurry up!’ I shouted. ‘Before I choke to death from the fumes!’

The Ex gave me a look. I just knew he was tempted to find another seven ‘urgent’ jobs.

‘If I die, you’ll have to look after the kids!’

Ha! That got him moving!

‘You’re right, Tiny. That petrol’s stinking. Pop the bonnet and I’ll take a look.’

‘Pop the what?’ I asked.

The Ex sighed, popped it himself and disappeared under that bonnet thing.

‘Oh God, turn the engine off!’ he shouted.

‘Why? What’s wrong?’

‘Just turn the engine off!’

‘Why? What’s the problem? And what’s that liquid stuff pissing all over the windscreen?

‘It’s petrol! Now would you turn the fucking engine off?!’

‘Okay,’ I snapped. ‘No need to swear…’

Tiny and the Breakdown Recovery Blokie who likes Dirty Talking Women…

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Are we sitting comfortably, children?

Then I’ll begin today’s story…

Once Upon a Time there was a princess sitting with her ex, in his car, in front of a dilapidated old banger, waiting for a nice man from breakdown to come and sort out her bleedin’ car.

And so, they waited. And waited. And waited.

And had a massive slanging match with some posh cow who wanted both cars gone so that she could park outside her mansion. Poor love! It wasn’t her fault; she was obviously stressed and couldn’t help getting teasy. Having your head stuck so far up your own arse would do that to a person.

Eventually, the ex spotted the breakdown truck  in his rearview mirror.

‘Quick! Get out! Wave at him! Flag him down before he drives past!’ he cried, pushing the princess out of the passenger door onto a grassy verge.

She muttered a sweary word, but bravely leapt out into the traffic, waving her arms and yelling, ‘Cooo-eee! Over ‘ere, love!’

There was a screech of brakes as the traffic zigzagged to a standstill. And in the middle of this chaos, our heroine made a gurgled noise. The driver of the ‘breakdown truck’ shouted and made a very rude sign with his middle finger before crunching gears and hurtling off. It was a Cornwall Council worker trying to get home for his tea…

Oops!

Our knight in oil-stained overalls eventually arrived and the princess, still embarrassed, crept out of her ex’s car. A nosy van driver was too busy watching the action to notice the car in front was stationary. He screamed to a stop, narrowly avoiding a pile-up.

Our heroine heard the squeal of brakes just behind her and leapt into the air, absolutely certain she was about to be crushed. Again.

‘Oh flippin’ hell – that made me jump!’ she cried.

Except, of course, it was the other ‘f’ word…

The breakdown blokie looked bemused but said nothing. Instead he stuck his head under the bonnet and began ‘fiddling’ with ‘things’. Yep, that’s as technical as it gets, I’m afraid.

‘Well, oim not sure what’s wrong, moi luverr,’  he announced, after having a jolly good fiddle. ‘She’ll ‘ave to go to a garage. See, you’ve got no pulse and your coil’s gone rusty.’

‘Bloody good job it’s you saying that and not my doctor,’ the princess quipped.

And so, after an arduous, bumpy journey along the lanes of Cornwall with a creaky old rust bucket on the back, they arrived at the garage.

‘You’ll ‘ave to sit in, moi luvver, while I take ‘er down off the ramp.’

If you’re very perceptive, you will have realised that our heroine is a big wimp. Even though she knew the car would move, she wasn’t really expecting actual movement, so when it happened, she panicked, and tried to scramble out of the door. Six feet above the ground. On a ramp. On a breakdown lorry.

And of course, she swore. Again. Loudly.

Once our pantomime car was off the ramp, it needed pushing into the garage.

‘You steer,’ said the ex, ‘and we’ll push.’

‘Oh please let me push! I don’t want to steer! God knows where we’ll end up if I’m left to steer!’

‘Just steer,’ said the ex through gritted teeth. ‘Cover. The. Brake. And. Steer.’

Sounds simple, huh?

Except the bleedin’ steering locked up again and three beefy blokes were now pushing our heroine – smack bang towards a chuffin’ great big brick wall!

She slammed on the brakes. Three male heads butted the rear window. Someone swore.

‘What are you doing, Tiny? the ex yelled.

Losing it big style!

‘The flippin’ steering’s flipping locked again! If I come off the flippin’ brake, we’ll end in the flippin’ wall!’ Our heroine yelled back.

‘Oo-er,’ said a Cornish voice. ‘Oi jus’ love it when a woman talks dirty!’          😉

Arrrgggghhhhh!

I have had:

• No internet for a week!
• No car for ten days!
• No hot men. Ever! 

Argghh!

And you wouldn’t believe the performance I had with the car. Last week Eldest son broke it! Honestly! And in an alleyway so narrow, the breakdown truck couldn’t recover it!

Actually that’s a lie. The knob driving the breakdown truck just couldn’t be arsed to recover it. I think he was scared of scuffing his knuckles or breaking a fingernail.

‘Well, that’s okay,’ said my ex. ‘We’ll just go down and tow it back’.

 Yeah, right.

I have never been so scared in my life – me in the driving seat of a car being towed through narrow alleyways, parked vehicles on my left, ex-husband in front, and kamikaze drivers trying to squeeze through on the right.

It was piddling with rain, the wipers were staging a go-slow and the bastard engine seized up.  I had no steering and no brakes. I was a Tiny ball in a pinball machine, veering from right to left, picking-up speed and careering closer and closer to my ex-husband’s back bumper.

‘Stop!’ I’ yelled. ‘For God’s sake, STOP!’

But, of course, he couldn’t hear me because he was in another car. With all the windows shut.

We Carried on Careering.

So I started waving. Frantically.

‘Pleeeeeaaaseee…stop the bloody car…I have no control…STOPPPPPPP!’

But, of course, he couldn’t see me because he was facing forwards, negotiating our Grand Prix-style Cornish hairpin bends.

Eventually we stopped. I don’t know how. By then I think I’d fainted.

‘God, what’s that awful smell?’ he said.

‘Me,’ I whimpered. ‘I just pooed myself.’

Well, the great thing about ex-spouses is that they know you really well. So they’re never surprised when suddenly, you morph into a screaming banshee, shaking and swearing in a thin, hysterical high-pitched squeal.

In my defence, I was terrified. And I apologised later. When my heartbeat finally came off the critical list.

We found a space at the side of a wide road, dumped my car and drove home.

After a short argument with the breakdown company, they agreed to come out again.

And that story shall be called ‘Tiny and the Breakdown Recovery Blokie who Likes a Woman Talking Dirty’.

I love my life…