I had the dubious pleasure of buying a second hand car today. Actually that is an over statement, I set out to buy a banger. I had to get some wheels on the road as Public Transport in Cornwall is almost non existent. Besides which, why should I share my space with people who knock my arm and smell funny! They say an Englishman's Home is his Castle....not in this day and age.. You won't get a Brit out of his car, even if petrol hits the two quid a litre mark.
After searching eBay and looking around locally I could find nothing. 'Right', I said, rolling my sleeves up, 'time to scour the local paper and talk to some spacey people'. I probably phoned about 20 numbers today. These people were not spacey but complete and utter fecking idiots. Nutter is one word I could use. The others that spring to mind are demented, fruitcake or mental defective. WHY do people advertise their cars and then seem reluctant to sell them? WHY do they forget to take them out of the paper when they sold them last week.
Words fail me... I offered to go to St Ives to look at one car (quite some distance from me) and the lady on the phone seemed happy with that. I phoned back to confirm and her hubby answered. After making me hold on for 5 minutes they had a long discussion and said they had decided to go out for a meal and would I mind phoning back. The car is for sale or its not! Bugger. I have had some real foot stamping moments today.
I phoned about another car.
'Hello I am phoning about the car you have for sale'
'Oh yes Mi Dear, what do you want to know?'
'Erm is it MOT'd?'
'We sold that...now lets see about 8 days ago....'
I am speechless. Another guy wanted to chat about his gout or some such terrible thing before he finally told me the car had been sold. A toddler answered the phone and told me his mum couldn't come to the phone. Yep, I have had the lot of them today! After ripping out several handfuls of hair Ma and Pa arrived. Ma tried to calm me down and Pa just resigned himself to driving me 100's of miles to find a car.
I was determined and Pa knew that look from old and just went with the flow. I was amazed as the last car I looked at, a sensible person with a terrifically broad Lancashire accent answered the phone. I may have only been able to understand about half of the conversation but he actually attempted to sell it to me. Yes! Yes! Yes! Result! Wild horses would not have stopped me as I dragged long suffering Pa to Indian Queens to view the motor. We do have some strange Cornish place names around here. Endellion is one of them! But Florence Rose is not. Note for American readers of this Blog (yes I do have a few) our PM just called his daughter Florence Rose Endellion as she was born in Cornwall.
I digress. Arriving at the address of man from Lancashire, my heart sank as I realised the car was....a Metro - sigh. I had got so excited about the prospect of wheels, I sort of forgot what the car was. I know I said I would not ever again drive a Metro because of dickey arm but beggars can't be choosers. Anyway, she says defensively, it was cleaner than the Grendel, there were no parking tickets in the glove box and there wasn't an empty Evian bottle in sight!
This Muse now has wheels but has also had the day from hell. New advertising rules should read. 'Anyone that can't be arsed to sell their car are prohibited from advertising here'. Grumpy girl promises she will be back to her own sweet self tomorrow.
Namaste
Muse x
No comments:
Post a Comment