The title here refers to my car, the speed being that of the kind neighbour who pushed it down the hill for me earlier this evening. It's had this non-starting problem for a while, intermittently - apparently all resolved one day, disastrous the next. So why don't I get the garage to look at it? My local, helpful, and highly experienced garageman, 100 metres from my front door? Because he'll draw blank. "Some hi-tech thing," he's bound to shrug, as he did last time and the other half dozen times I've dragged him over to inspect the beast since snapping it up in a hurried purchase last winter (after driving the last one through a flood).
Even the vehicle recovery teams get stumped and stand scratching their heads while traffic streams past on either side and my work-arrival deadline slides past. In the end, it usually turns out to be a case of trying every possible mix and match of buttons and thumps until you hit lucky - like when the chocolate bar gets stuck in the vending machine. Or it'll be a matter of spotting a dud bulb at the opposite end of the car from the problem.
Or it'll simply be a matter of clicking out of - wait for it - Anti-Hijack Mode. Heard of it? On a car? Well, I hadn't. I live in a quiet country village where hijacks aren't too much of a problem, so I have to confess that it wasn't the number one item on my check list. There's no knowing how I clicked into it, but I expect I was trying to get the wipers to work, as usual. They're hi-tech too, of course, and prefer to work at their own discretion, saving my hand from the tiring action of turning the knob, I suppose - very nice, if one's stationary and resting.
Anyway, I won't bore you with the symptoms of Anti-Hijack Mode, if you haven't experienced it, but, in a nutshell, if you want to open one door you have to shut all the rest first, or lights will flash and the horn will beep and the steering wheel will lock, and that'll be that. As for opening the boot... simplest just to forget it. You can probably fish out the tea flask with a long arm over the back seat, and the picnic was probably full of calories anyway.
If the manual had been available, I could have checked out the symptoms and pressed the appropriate buttons for the appropriate number of seconds, of course (or just possibly), but it was in the glove compartment, wasn't it. Locked in. Great. So, as per usual, I vented my frustration in a rhyme, which I'll be putting up on the poetry pages soon. It's the sort that calls for a tune actually, so if you're musical...
Meanwhile, bring back the dear old Morris Minor, I say!
No comments:
Post a Comment