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Wednesday, February 13, 2013

How I love thee Golden Boy!





Scotto and I have the juvenile habit of personifying inanimate objects. We’ve named my robot vacuum cleaner “Poomba”, although we might as well have called it, “Useless electricity burden that sits in a corner collecting its own dust balls”.
Our laptop computers don’t have names but they get spoken to quite a lot. Usually something along the lines of, “You stupid f##ing piece of sh#t, I’m going to throw you out the f#%ing window in a minute if you don’t stop freezing on me.”

Our cars on the other hand are much loved, named and completely humanised machines. Scotto had a little silver Daewoo Lanos called “Lenny”and I owned his big brother Ford Falcon, “Carl”. Scotto has a bit of a thing about the Simpsons . “Lenny” has since been handed down to twenty one year old, stoical Jonah who judiciously refuses to enter into our whimsy and calls “Lenny” a car.

Scotto’s new car has a distinctive feature in that as soon as you get in and close the door, the locks are all automatically and aggressively activated. We’ve named it “Ivan” after Ivan Milat, the serial killer who picked up unsuspecting hitchhikers.

My new car, “Golden Boy” is my absolute pride and joy. Sporty, jaunty, stylish, flashy and YELLOW he (yes our cars are all boys) stands out in a crowd. I hear kids everywhere screaming “SPOTTO” and punching each other when I drive past. 

One of my students told me that in their family, Golden Boy is worth two punches when they drive past him in the school car park each day. 

My ‘friends’ were quite scathing when I first acquired him, ridiculing my driving ability and questioning my working knowledge of a six speed gear box. According to them I drive like Mr. Magoo, puttering up the highway at fifty-five kilometres an hour, gripping tightly to the steering wheel and squinting straight ahead like a senior citizen . 

Some friends, like my buddy Emma, have embraced the personality and charm of my car and go along with the human qualities I have bestowed on him. 

After getting stuck behind me at the lights the other day she texted, 

“Golden Boy has a very cute bum!” 
I’m now considering asking her to be Golden Boy’s godmother.

Since purchasing my treasured Golden Boy I have become (some might say) obsessed about his well-being. No food is permitted inside the car and no-one else is allowed to drive him. I park him miles away from other cars in parking lots to avoid door whacking from careless drivers. 

The other day a friend and colleague, Rachael, asked me if I would give her a lift to her car, parked near the highway. 

Okay, no worries with that, I thought. 

Unfortunately her car was parked off a gravel track leading to the highway. 

Alarmed I stopped abruptly at the entrance to the track.

“Um… do you really want me to drive you right up to the car, Rach?”

“It’s thirty-six degrees out there, what do you reckon?” she replied incredulously. “You’re going to drop me here and make me walk?”

“Well, it’s just that I’m worried some of those rocks will spray up and scratch Golden Boy. I’ll drive the three hundred metres if you really want.”

“Don’t bother!” she replied snappishly, “I won’t have to work so hard at the gym this afternoon.”

Smiling through clenched teeth she closed the door a tiny bit firmly, “Thanks for the lift.” 

About half an hour later whilst loading groceries into the back of the car and before I could throw my fraught body in front of it; a mighty gust of wind blew the shopping trolley smack bang into the back of Golden Boy. 

Aaaaaaaaaaargh! Bugger, bum, sh#t! Golden Boy, was now besmirched with an ugly chunk in his glossy exterior!


 I know there’s no logical reason for this but I can’t help but blame Rachael.

If I hadn’t given her a lift to the car I would have missed that gust of wind and Golden Boy would have remained in his chaste and untainted state.