[m i a o w] the cat

It has been a happy and very sad couple of days. On Thursday night we got some wine for the risotto I was making for dinner. We put it in the car fridge that runs off the cigarette lighter. It’s very handy. However, in the morning when the van wouldn’t start, we realised that it had been left on all night and flattened the battery. My mother and I pushed the van down the driveway and down the road with M steering and my Nan sitting high in the middle of the front seat. No joy. The van didn’t want to start. Me and my mum walked back to the front garden and started the Humber to give the van a jumpstart. I backed it out of the driveway. I hadn’t closed my drivers side door. The fencepost nearly ripped it off. Forced it back toward the front of the car. Ripped a hole in the front panel. As I cleared the post the door bounced back. Trashed. Couldn’t believe it. My lovely car. My lovely car that has driven me from Melbourne to Queensland and back again, around Tasmania, up the coast of New South Wales, to a million gigs and band practices. It’s door is like a little broken wing. I just got out of the car and cried. I am so stupid I can’t stand the sight of myself. There’s no way known I’m telling my dad.

Even though my mum took me out and bought us two sets of beautiful towels and got me two tops to wear in Spain, my day was sad. I love my car. My mum was saying ‘It’s only a car…’ which is true. But I love my car in the way I assume those guys who trick their cars up to the nth degree must love their cars. I have had a Humber since I got my drivers license. The engine that I have now is the engine I have always had - I swapped bodies about seven years ago; from white to robins egg blue with a silver roof. Now it looks like I have to find a new front panel and a new door…I have no Humber contacts up here. I was only saying to M the night before that what I wanted for my birthday was for him to finish the dashboard of my car that he started restoring just before we left Melbourne.

BROWSE / IN TIMELINE
« Off We Go
» See You in Marblehead

BROWSE / IN Humber
« On The Road (Almost)
» Sunshiney

COMMENTS / 6 COMMENTS

heart of matter
Pure admiring sockpuppetry.. You know how the car you have now is secretly just a television on wheels but at least it is reliable but somewhere in a parallel universe you still have the car which you actually loved? The…

BARISTA typed this on Apr 05 04 at 3:36 pm

[…] Car? Various things amiss with the Humber. The oil leaking from the diff, the carbie issue, air filter and oil filter, the door that wind whistles through (constantly reminding me of my idiocy). Oh, and I forgot to mention that the boot is stuck shut. I took my sister’s Humber Vogue for a short spin a few weekends back and remembered what it was like to drive a car with four solid doors. It was comforting. So here I am musing over what is best to do and watching a wet ostrich out the window. Posted on September 3rd 2006 in Musings and Humber […]

My aquaintance, Murphy. « [m i a o w] the cat typed this on Sep 03 06 at 10:32 am

[…] The thing was, I just didn’t want him to get frustrated with the boot and then force it and damage it. I already have a very healthy dose of self loathing about driving backwards past the gatepost with my door open, and I really don’t want that to spread and envelop him as well as me. But today I seem to have contracted some interesting strain of NSW north coast flu that Jen brought down with her and obviously spat into my beer on Saturday night. Grrr. …which is sitting nicely with some other symptoms that the local doctor suggested may be the onset of shingles… Gah. So I was in a weakened state, and when M offered to take a look at the boot this morning, I aquiesed - and then ran inside so I didn’t have to watch. […]

The under-estimation of M « [m i a o w] the cat typed this on Oct 09 06 at 2:48 pm

[…] Oh LORDY!! A response!! In less than 24 hours. Ostensibly from the lady herself!!! (Almost as good as the time I got an email from David Gedge, or that comment from Peter Temple!) […]

A win? A response!! « [m i a o w] the cat typed this on Jun 14 07 at 5:04 pm

[…] Irish? I live in hope… I know I point this out fairly regularly, but he did leave a comment here once! Now I will stop behaving like my mother when she thought Small Brother went to a royal wedding, […]

Peter Temple slays the opposition « [m i a o w] the cat typed this on Jul 06 07 at 12:52 pm