Mega busted

To be honest, I wasn’t really expecting this.

I mean, I know it was a bargain, but sitting on the tarmac with a gun pointing at me definitely wasn’t mentioned on the website.

I have an amazing ability to turn perfectly good cars into the sort of vehicle even Arthur Daley would have a problem selling. My 2 year old Fiat Punto developed a strange electrical fault that meant the battery entirely drained on a completely random basis, and even the local dealership tried to convince me there was nothing wrong with it. Except that it sometimes wouldn’t start. Other than that – absolutely fine. It had it’s own twitter hashtag for a while too - #crappyfiat

Now I have a Mitsusquishy Colt. Under a year old, 3000 miles on the clock, and an airbag warning light came on. After a sensor replacement, it calmly waited a few months, then came on again, just to spite me. Since then, the gearknob came off in my hand (which isn’t a euphemism) and now a wheel bearing is making every journey sound like I have an insane bagpipe player on board. And it’s still only got 15k on the clock. Although I suppose it’s entirely plausible that that might be broken too. It’s getting hard to tell.

Needing to get to a meeting in London, I decided against risking the car (I didn’t want to wind up sat on the hard shoulder) and had a hunt around for alternative forms of transport. The train was ridiculously expensive, but luckily I found a bargain elsewhere.

What with all the car woes, and the stress of needing to get to this meeting, I was finding that quitting smoking was becoming increasingly difficult, so decided to invest in something to help me stay off the cigarettes. In hindsight, I really should have read the instructions, but I was in a bit of a hurry.

So there I was, heading down the motorway towards London, and as we approached the Toll Booths, I thought to myself, “Well, this is mega bargain – I don’t have to pay the toll either!” Knowing there was still a long journey ahead, I thought I’d check out my newly acquired aid to staying smoke free, but as I undid the packaging, it dropped onto the floor. As I got up to get it, it rolled back under my foot just at the wrong moment. A nasty cracking noise emanated forth.

It looked OK, but then the white steamy stuff, that’s meant to make you think it’s smoke, started leaking out. I quickly grabbed a plastic bag out and popped it in. Annoyed that I’d wasted my money, I looked around the coach, and noticed a chap having an agitated conversation on his mobile. “Wow”, I thought – “at least I’m not the only one having a bad day”.

Shortly afterwards, our Megabus stopped on the hard shoulder, and then lots of armed police showed up. Someone’s in really big trouble!

Have a good, terrorism free, weekend.

If you can.

This post first appeared in my 'Thank grumpy it's Friday' column in the North West Evening Mail on Friday 13th July 2012. This is the unedited version - you can view the printed/online version here: "Didn't expect to see a gun pointing at me", was used as the title by the NWEM, who also kindly rang me to see if I actually WAS caught up in the Megabus/M6 caper. Nope - that bit wasn't true. The stuff about me and cars is, though. Unfortunately... It'd be grand to see some comments, so please go there and leave one. A nice one, if you like. Or a bad one. It's a democracy, after all.

(Some quality guitarage is filling my head tonight, courtesy of David Gilmour's "Live In Gdansk" album.)