M-O-T VATION

Has it really been a year already? “Crikey!” he thinks, as he so often seems to these days “Where did that go?” Every week seems to race by at such a rate of knots and, even at the relatively slow pace of a number every second, I can count to fifty two in under a minute, and suddenly that tiny number of moments has added up to another year and another slim brown envelope has popped through the door.

They’re never good, are they? Buff brown envelopes. They seldom contain good news. Maybe, if you’re extremely lucky there might just be an unexpected cheque concealed within, but generally it is your limited finances that they wish to detach from you rather than add to.

This time the envelope was from those lovely chaps at the garage I pay to keep “Blinky, the Wonder Car” staggering and lurching along rather than having to face an ignominious fate at the hands of the scrap merchants, and giving me the less-than-delightful opportunity to show my genius for picking the worst of several poor options in the second-hand car market to replace it. Better, as they say, the devil you know. Nevertheless, I am rather grateful that they actually do send these letters out, to be fair, for I suspect that without them, my sieve-like memory would have found me being fined many, many times over the years.

Found out. Fined ite. Hmmm… Not really posh enough for the ‘green welly’ set, but that pronunciation would be… revealing, to say the least.

Anyway, I get three types of letters from the emporium of mechanical surgery; Bills, receipts for bills and reminders that lead to future bills. This time it was the latter: “Your” – or rather your car’s – “MOT test is due, please arrange at your earliest convenience, etc., etc.” Somehow this year, back in the middle of March when this reminder arrived, I managed to get rather confused as to quite when Easter was going to turn up and made the regrettable mistake of booking the test for the very latest possible date I could, with no wiggle room whatsoever. If “Blinky”, like the less-than-prize pupil it is, failed the test, it would mean detention, no playing out at the weekend, and we anxious parents would be left stuck at home trying to eke out our last bottle of milk and loaf of bread until a bus chose to show it’s face hereabouts.

And so, as the sun tried and failed to burst through the clouds on another morning, the sad day dawned and, having removed all the more embarrassing CDs from the glove compartment (which has rarely, if ever, held any gloves – it’s more of a “melted bags of sweets and plastic forks” compartment really…), I started my faithful and venerable vehicle and drove it the couple of miles to the local garage of destiny. It was a short and quiet journey. Well, it would have been quiet if it wasn’t for “Blinky’s” persistent rattling. Usually I drown that out with some sort of power ballad, but that morning this was obviously not an option, and the dubious delights of the banalities of the breakfast radio shows really did not appeal. Instead, in my head there was the persistent tolling of a doom-laden bell which seemed to somehow suit the mood.

I pulled in onto the garage forecourt into an especially marked out parking space painted with the letters “MOT”. It was early, but they had just opened up and the lights were on in the workshop, no doubt in eager anticipation, burning all those kilojoules in the sure knowledge that a huge payday was imminent. I sadly climbed out of Blinky and, placing the fat dossier making up last year’s MOT documents onto the passenger seat, locked the doors.

One of the mechanics came over to greet me, smiling warmly. We’re old friends now, and they always seem pleased to see me. I wonder why that is? Still, because I’ve never been the most “blokey” of blokes, every time I panic myself into some kind of forced bonhomie with the mechanics, dragging out my same old tired jokes for the umpteenth time, with the usual slightly bitter subtext.

“Ha! Ha! Now you’ve seen who’s driven onto the forecourt this morning, you can go and book your holidays…” and so on.

Then, I handed over the keys and, considering this is supposed to be a test checking roadworthiness, made my usual mistake of listing the reams of problems that I thought that Blinky might have before anyone else had even had a chance to look at it, no doubt adding hugely to whatever massive invoice I will be getting later on in the week. Many, many years ago, back in my days living in the city, and when I had even less money than I had sense, one of my cars always got a bill of about £300 (and that was a lot for me to put my hand on back then…) every single time it was looked at.

Every. Single. Time.

One time I think the guy who used to nurture that particular vehicle for me had cottoned on to the fact that I might have started noticing the uniformity of his billing system and he was waiting for me fully prepared. He handed me the bill (around £300, unsurprisingly…) and then reached under the desk to grab a broken speedometer and tell me how lucky I was. He’d just replaced this speedometer in a car, he said, and that single part on its own was £500. So, with a certain amount of gratitude, I wrote out the cheque and headed off towards my inevitable write-off, and it was only much later when I wondered whether he kept that thing under the desk for precisely those sorts of conversations.

So, rather suddenly, I’m a pedestrian again, facing the prospects of long, long walks just to get a pint of milk or a loaf of bread, and even further to reach the railway station if I want to go further afield. There is rumoured to be the last dregs of a bus service hereabouts and, if you’re prepared to wait a couple of hours or so, even taxis have been known to turn up once in a blue moon. Perhaps the exercise will do me good, although I think I’m getting rather too old for such adventurousness.

I was half way home before I had the rather unhappy revelation that I might very well have driven “Blinky” for the very last time that morning and I didn’t even realise it, and that made me feel very sad. We’ve been through a lot these last – is it nine? - years, Blinky and I, and I don’t think I’m quite ready for us to be parted just yet.

Some day soon, when I can bring myself to talk about it, I’ll let you know how it went.