The Bockmobile will be twenty years old in January, and that’s not young for a car.  Jesus, these days, it isn’t even young for a criminal.

Now, you can’t have failed to notice that I was away in Poland last week, and apart from visiting the scenes of awful atrocities, I also visited the scenes of much beer-selling and late-night carousing, which meant that I wasn’t firing on all cylinders when I got home. 

At the best of times, I’m not good at dates.  I just can’t do it, unlike people who plan the entire year in front of them.  That’s Auntie Maisie’s birthday.  Must get a present.  And that’s Tommy and Gertie’s anniversary.  I’ll have to send a card. 

No.  I can’t do that.  For me there are only three broad time-zones.  Now This Minute.  The Past.  The Future.

I must remember to do that in The Future. (An amorphous, vague, undelineated mass of babbling time-particles, punctuated only by missed birthdays and last-minute luggage-packing).  In my universe, that doesn’t work.

I knew the car test was due shortly after we got back, but, being me, I didn’t know exactly when.  And so, when I picked up the confirmation letter, it was with a certain smug sense of satisfaction that this time I was ahead of the game.

I wasn’t.

The fucking test was to be at four o’clock and I had no idea what needed to be done to the Bockmobile, what was broken, what kind of emissions it would give out, if it needed a new air filter or headlights aligned or new tyres or wipers or the rectabular excrusion bracket recontendralised.

Shit!

I phoned the Laughing Mechanic.  What’ll I do?  What will I do?  What the fuck am I going to do?

Don’t worry, he soothed. I’d say you’re screwed.

Fuck you, I joked.  I’ll find out where you live and murder your family.

Fuck you too, he sneered amiably.  I’ll cut your fucking eyes out.

Oh God.  What can I do in two hours?  Well, I suppose I could take out the five different jackets that have been on the back seat for months.  And the 3.5 pairs of safety boots.  And the forty-seven old newspapers.  And the collection of broken CD cases.  And the crowbar.  And the cordless drill. And the huge collection of brochures I picked up at exhibitions, and always planned to read some time.  And the can of paint I don’t like the colour of but lost the receipt to and therefore can’t return to the soulless, multinational DIY shop.

I could top up the windscreen washer.  I could buy some of that stuff you pour into the tank to reduce the emissions, though I have no idea how.  I could clean the layer of filth off the windows.

Hmmm.

I dropped it to the testing centre and went for a walk.

Some people stand by the window, watching as they put the vehicle through its paces but I don’t do that.  I don’t like it when they rev the fuck out of it and I especially don’t like it when the guy testing my car calls another mechanic over and points at something in the engine, and they both stand there looking at it and shaking their heads, or possibly even laughing.  I don’t like that, and so I always go for a walk.  Que sera, sera.

I have this ritual during the car-test, of walking around aimlessly and contemplating the implications of replacing the Bockmobile, but this time it had the extra piquancy of a new economic climate.  A new world of credit squeezes and contracting disposable incomes.  A world of pain.

Misery passes the time well and before I knew it, I was back at the desk, and the tester was handing me a piece of paper, while shaking his head.

I wandered back to my poor old Bockmobile, trying to make sense of the document and failing, so I phoned the Laughing Mechanic.

Hello Bock, you fucking bollix, he guffawed.

Bad news, I told him.

What?

There’s nothing wrong with the car.  It passed.  Fuck you.

______________________

Previously:

More Motoring Problems

The Laughing Mechanic

The Machines Revolt