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Our big car (for touring, family holidays and if someone else is using the electric car) has been out of commission for a month, having failed its MOT of having a foreign headlight. It's a long story and I am not sure it's worth telling, but that has never stopped me before. Several months ago Catie caught the side of the car on the gate post and cracked the headlight - this apparently meant it could not pass its MOT, but annoyingly it seemed impossible to get a new headlight for a VW Sharan and so I bought a knock off one on ebay, that turned out to be for European cars and thus pointed in the wrong direction. It was fixed to get its glare as near to being right as possible, but that didn't satisfy the fascistic MOT board who apparently think it's wrong to dazzle oncoming traffic (very slightly). So the MOT had failed and again, the part was not available, so this time I had to order one and wait for weeks or even months (was the guestimate).
In the end it took a mere month and a bit.
I told you it wasn't worth telling.
Anyway the part was in today and I needed to get an MOT as well so I could get the car back on the road. You will not believe how much this all cost me and you have to add in the cost of also installing the EU headlight a few months ago and the failed MOT.
No matter. The car is fixed now and just in time for my gig in Leicester on Sunday.
I waited at the VW dealership for about four hours. I had some work to do so I got on with that. I am still trying to drink 2 and a half litres of water a day, so I needed the loo a lot. On going into the stall I was greeted with one of the worse sights possible in a public toilet: the lid was down.
This isn't necessarily a sign of disaster - maybe the previous user just knew about how much effluent gets sprayed into the air if you have the lid up when they flush - but too many times a closed public toilet lid means you are about to open up Pandora's Bog and be greeted with something unimaginably awful.
The closed public toilet lid is sort of an anti-Christmas present. You may have suspicions about the kind of thing that might be in there, but you are likely still going to get a surprise. Even at the age of 58 you can be astonished by what other human beings can accomplish in the privacy of a cubicle and their refusal to clean up after themselves.
I opened the lid attempting to close every orifice in my body, but peeked within and the water was as clean as every can be expected and the porcelain unsplattered and no human effluent was visible.
So why had the lid been closed? Had I just been punk'd by another garage user who knew what their action of lowering the lid would signify to the next customer. It's a very low grade punking and one where the punker does not see the consequences of their punk. But that makes it more psychologically damaging to the punkee. Well-played sir, I thought, confident that as I was in the men's lav that a man had been responsible. No one dare disobey the signs on the door unless they have some ambiguity about gender in them.
It was only when I went to flush that I realised why the lid was down. The flush was behind the seat. The punker was actually the person who had designed this toilet set up, ensuring that (as long as people flushed away their own effluent - which is not guaranteed) the next person would for a moment fear they were going to see some abomination of humanity. Fear followed by relief, followed by relief, followed by the knowledge that you were passing on the punking to the next punkee in the chain. The ultimate punk.
Cap doffed and lid replaced.
As I went to the loo so often I became the punkee of my own punking several times, usually momentarily forgetting what the punk even was.
Anyway, my car is fixed and taxed now and if 200 people want to subscribe for a month on Substack then I can pay for it!
You've been punk'd.
There’s another Craven Newsround up for your delectation, exposing the world’s worst hypocrites. Get in at the ground floor on this show, so you can tell you grandchildren you were there at the start!
This month’s Ask Me Anything is below the Substack paywall (or in your badger secret area). If you get a question on the air then you get to see that month’s video whether a susbcriber or not, plus you get an exclusive badge. Ask Me Anything at arichardherringa@gmail.com
