Nothing like breezing about in a nippy little car. Shiny black, sort of sporty, highly manoeuvrable, comfy behind the wheel and even if it lacks the grunt to go uphill in any meaningful way, that’s OK provided it doesn’t sag with spasms of indecision. This was the nearly new motor I bought last Christmas. No sooner had I met the asking price than I was into it, charging around town, surging up side streets, whizzing along open roads and executing what I considered to be deft turns in tight spaces.
It was so neat and tidy, a far cry from the little yellow number that had been a champ in its day but had now become a smelly old banger. To add to the old car’s general air of dilapidation it sported a grubby floral bedspread across its back seat for Spud the dog. The spread was one of those voluminous, padded nylon numbers that could just about spark up an electric current if the dog got too frisky. So it was with much joy and anticipation that I took the wheel of the MG. This will do me, I shouted. It’s got everything I want.
Letter to the Editor
Well, hold my horsepowers. Unfortunately, the car was also unregistered and uninsured.
It remained so for months and months. The practicalities of ensuring rego was done at point of sale had somehow eluded me. But ignorance is bliss. Away I’d gone, blithely unaware of the criminal status I was accumulating. I may even on occasions have waved to traffic officers. Driven within a whisker of police vehicles. Chatted amicably with any number of people who held the fate of my license to drive in their hands.
Well it all had to come crashing down. The other day a reminder of my miscreant behaviour, accompanied by a request for a sizeable payment of cash, was slotted into our mailbox.
Within a nanosecond I was off to sort this out. No point in bemoaning my fate, but it now presented another dilemma. Should I or should I not drive the equally tatty flat tray in the interim. It wasn’t the driving so much. It was the dirty big huntsman spiders that had taken up residence in the Toyota. If one of those waved its legs at me when I was edging down Emu Bay Road the consequences could have been diabolical.
In the end I passed on the flat tray and cadged rides. I banged on about the rego thing to anyone who would listen and they all said the same thing.
‘Why don’t they still have rego on the windscreen?’
Funny they should ask that. That’s pretty much what the aforementioned has been leading up to. Someone, somewhere years ago decided to take a perfectly functioning, easy to understand system and replace it with one that really gets the goat of motorists. As for the new car; it’s regoed and insured fair and square. The revolting bedspread has been given an airing and made its way onto the back seat. It’s still smelly. Spud feels right at home.
