Diary of an up and coming sociopath

On Saturday, I left Oxford around midday, bound for Leamington. It was the beginning of a journey that, over the weekend, would take many tolls on me. At the time, I had little idea what was in store. I drove down in a pretty uneventful manner, listening to my recently created Pixies tape. I say “uneventful”, there was a particularly bad torrent of rain towards the end, with a kind of 3-yard visibility motif, but that’s pretty easy to deal with, and quite fun in an extreme sports way. When I got in, Nikki and I went to Leamington for a while, after father’s day presents and similar things. It wasn’t until the end of this trip that I had a nagging doubt about the sound the car was making, I could hear a low growl that wasn’t there before. When you drive a car a lot, things like this tend to stick out. I took Nikki and Jo to Warwick hospital, where their mother is now admitted, and continued on to Paul’s house.

By this point, it seemed obvious to me that the car was sounding strange. I went up to Josh’s for a bit, we got Nikki and Jo, and then went to a traditional carvery, remembering this time to ask for Pepsi rather than coke - it’s a running theme, that when you ask for Coke in a Toby Carvery, they say “It’s Pepsi, is that alright?” in a move presumably forced by their evil pepsi distributors. In all the time we’ve been, this is the first time we’ve remembered it’s Pepsi before being told. But anyway. On the way back, I was certain the noise was bad and we speculated as to what it might be. Of the 5 of us, Nikki came out with the working theory that the silencer/muffler/exhaust noise reduction gear had broken, and that become the operating thoery. I resolved to get Dad to look at it, and see what the situation was. I knew not at the time, but it was a resolution I was doomed to be unable to fill.

The following morning, I took Jo to choir. The car sounded even worse than ever and I was getting strange looks from people who heard me growling down the road. I sonded not unlike some kind of racing enthusiast with a souped up fiesta, and if I had added a spoiler I might’ve gotten away with it. We went to ASDA and, as wit last week, bought up their stock of cheap-ass Vimto cans. 16p each! The car loaded, we bagan the drive back to warwick, but just as we approached Castle Lane, a horrible noise began. It was a kind of dragging, tearing noise, and I was convinced the ehaust pipe had just dropped off altogether.

False alarm, though. At least, some kind of misdirection, for the problem was actually that one of my tyres had burst. Entirely split, in fact. I had been considering that I needed new tyres to pass this MOT, but it didn’t occur to me that the previous ones would be so badly worn. The front right tyre was my only original one remaining, and it was apparantly pretty illegal to be driving with it. I admit I hadn’t checked the tyres since before Easter, though I can’t imagine it wasn’t obviously unacceptable then if it wasn’t today, which makes me assume I just didn’t have a clue what it was considered unacceptable in tyres. Guess I should make sure it doesn’t get that bad again. We changed the tyre with some help from Nikki’s dad, and in the process discovered that I have a car jack hidden in the boot which had gone untouched ever since I got the car. I know it’s there now though.

Still, with the tyre replaced, I dropped Nikki off, and headed up to Dad’s. On this journey, in addition to the awful din of engine, I could hear the clanging of metal. We considered, at first, it was the vimto cans in the back, but it later turned out the middle exhaust had become totally disconnected from the rear section and the clanging of metal ‘pon metal was actually those two bits colliding. Dad was udnerstandably nonplussed about the prospect of paying for repairs, but he did do it, and for that I am grateful. After dinner, we took the car up to Kwik Fit, left it there for a few minutes and wandered up into Leamington, where he checked out some coats in Millets which cost roughly the same as my food budget for a term, and then went to Waterstones and got a walking-themed OS map of Snowdonia, since it turns out his walking hobby is at least partially centred around climbing the three highest peaks in the UK, and he’d already done the other two. No small ambition, but to be honest, that’s probably his style.

The car is now driving nicely. I feel much better about going places when I’m not drawing attention to myself, and to be honest I’m still wondering who to thank for the fact that the tyre burst at 20mph in Warwick centre and not 85mph down the M40. The bonus upshot of this is that once I get some new wiper blades, it should (fingers crossed) pass the MOT, though who knows what problems might arise. Cars can, apparantly, be fickle beasts. I got my wheels balanced though, so it can’t be that. To be honest, I always assumed that was some kind of scam term so that mechanics could claim to have done extra work, but Kwik Fit charged at a flat rate, so I dunno. I’ll be intrigued to hear if the MOT guys in a few weeks claim to have done it.

After all was done, I picked Nikki up and we dropped in to see if nan was back form the hospital, since she was ill earlier. Pad arrived home just as Nikki and I got out of the car, so we sat with him for a bit and he told us that Nan was more or less in again for the same reason she was this time, last year. I’m quite glad, since I’m at Uni, that once she’s back in Warwick, Nikki will be able to drop in and see her when she goes to see her Mum. Worked out pretty convenient, in the end. Having spent half an hour or so there, we left my grandparent’s house and made out swift way back to Oxford. When I arrived, the car sounded as it had when I left - totally normal. Petrol consuption seems to be down a bit too.

So, that was my weekend told through the medium of car problems. I understand this may hav ebeen incredibly boring for those of you who don’t own cars, and for those of you that do. I personally can’t stand talking about cars, which now I think about it, is probably what lead to these problems as it was. Ah well. I’ll consider this a learning experience.