I picked up my new car today and as expected had mixed emotions. I was not only losing my first ever car, I was betraying the League of Consecutive Number Plate Spotting by moving from the old number plate system (where I had a useful and solid number 336) to the hated new system. I was betraying an inanimate object and an imaginary organisation and its unworshipped gods. And there is no greater betrayal than that.
On the other hand I was getting a shiny new car with no dents or scrapes (that'll soon change) and more technology in it (the salesman claimed) than the rocket had in the first mission to the moon.
It felt wrong, but it felt right.
I had to drive the new car right past the old one as I left, but I was too worried about crashing this spaceship into a wall that I barely even noticed. It seemed cruel. They could at least have covered the old girl's headlights so she couldn't see.
We had some good times together and enjoyed the longest relationship I've ever had outside of friends and family. I had it before I moved into this house, before I started writing this blog. Now the blog itself must be thinking, "If he can just cast aside his car then what hope is there for me?" Don't worry my pretty, I'll never leave you. What's that a six figure book deal?
I'm kidding.
I hope someone else gets to take the old car on, though I fear it's more likely she'll be taken apart for scrap. It would be a shame. It's still a good car. I should never have left her.
And as if to warn me that what I had just done was slightly criminal, within ten minutes of driving off the forecourt I was pulled over by the police.
They were doing a tax and insurance check and as I waited for the lights to change a policeman indicated that I should pull over. They saw what I looked like and they saw the car I was in and they knew that something was wrong here. I should be in a beaten up Y Reg not a car capable of going to the moon. Or maybe their computer had picked up that I was driving a car with no registered owner (the ink was probably still wet on the forms that I had signed). I didn't know my own registration number, but fortunately I had all my documents on the seat beside me. I hadn't committed any crime that they could arrest me for, but I think we all know that there are some crimes that the law courts don't cater for. "How many miles does it do to the gallon?" asked the policeman. "I don't know," I replied, "I haven't even driven two miles yer".
It was an uneasy start as me and the new car got to know each other, but I overcame my shame (mainly when I realised I could get 6Music on the digital radio in this car) and began to fall in love with a newer, younger model (I have gone for another Golf - I have my type). This must be a bit what it's like when you have a baby. You're worried that if you leave it in the car park for a couple of hours that something bad might happen to it.
I didn't get the Pope gig again. They went for a 76 year old instead - well don't say I didn't warn them. Honestly I think by the time they seriously consider me I might be almost that age myself. But on the plus side I should be able to throw my frisby cardinal hat into the ring again before the decade is up.
