It’s only a car, is it?
You will always know when I am tired and or when I have too much to do as these stories are likely to be shorter and perhaps you will detect the rush. I have no more than 15 minutes to ‘put pen to paper’.
So the day arrived that I would drive my car to the dealer and pick up the replacement. I had a little cause to worry as I am was not certain my car would make it.
I left enough time to clear everything from it and as always it made me realise how much living I do in the car. My boot ( is that a UK word? trunk in the US?) had become a mobile library and office. Yes, I did have that sense of leaving or letting go of something, I know it is only a car.
It is only a car but perhaps in the same way we live in ‘only a home’ or in ‘only a body’ yet look how attached we get to them.
I had that car for almost 9 years. I am not in the habit of changing much except my socks so if this car had of kept running I would have kept running it. Curiously my last car was a similar age and mileage when I parted with it, is that a pattern being formed?
Like a photograph album, I can look at my car and remember certain stories. The left driver side tells the story when I was tight going round a corner and some scaffolding met me. The back has more scars than the front, the left side dent tells the story when I reversed into those bollards than someone placed in the car park. The right side dents tell the recent story of me not seeing the pillar in the car park as it was painted the same colour as the walls. The bumper also tells the story of the woman who hit me and who I was more concerned for and her child that I forgot to take her number plate. I did pay her a visit, she was out, so that one never got sorted.
I got to the showroom and it was as if I had climbed Everest or at least finished the local charity walk. It was the last time and given the noises below me I was thankful.
I had an excellent salesman who was one of the few who read me well and knew I did not want sales talk just practicality.
I remembered 9 years of Cee’s life in this car and relayed to him just one story before I departed. You know the small compartment in the roof? Well I kept my sunglasses in there and when the sun came out I would say, “ 2nd Lieutenant could I have the glasses please”. She would reach up, retrieve them for me and feel she was co piloting the car, yes we were pilots.
I haven’t time to tell you about the morning breakfast shows we used to do.
g.
