Entry for 28th June, 2008

As part of my on-going drive to make 100 small improvements to bring my rather shabby life into pristine showroom condition, I have had the bodywork on my rather ageing car attended to. This was long-overdue, and has returned the basic colour of the vehicle from a tone known as “Heavily Oxidised Orange” to something closer to the original dark blue tone.
My car is now reaching that age (8 years) where decisions about spending money on it are becoming more and more difficult. I fear that my recent drive to improve it will actually involve me in spending considerably more than the car is now worth.I know that oxidisation is inexorable; as my old teacher Flakey Fleming used to say in his snarling Lanarkshire drawl: “I see these guys spending money on their cars, polishing them up, and that’s fine if that’s what you want to do. But I’m a chemist: and I know the only thing to do when you buy a car is to start saving up for the next one.”
However, the only option to spending the money on the bodywork is to consign my poor old Merc to the scrapyard. And I do not feel ready for that. I am like a surgeon with an ailing patient on the operating table – I know that the current operation may only extend the patient’s life for a few more months, but I do not feel ready to sign the death certificate just yet.