Entry for May 26, 2007

I was approached by a small child today who asked me if I could fix his bike. I asked him what was wrong with it, and he explained that it had become immobilised by a cardigan. Now there's something that you don't often encounter as an adult - means of transport rendered useless as a result of stray clothing.
"I'm sorry Deirdre, we cannot take the Astra out today, on account of it becoming entangled with my grey Primark fleece."
"Oh Tania, we can't get the Landy going; Uncle Harry left his Barber jacket unattended and there's been a terrible incident."
The little boy's predicament has reminded me of my one other vehicular/clothing related incident which involved an occasional visitor to this page - Fuzzy. Fuzzy and I were at university together. When we were younger and thinner, he owned an ageing Dolomite Sprint. It was rusting, white and the passsenger seat smelt faintly of faeces on account of the effectFuzzy's hairraising driving had on anyone who had the temerity to sit there. His motto as I recall was "I never use my mirror; anyone behind me will have to take care of themselves."
Anyway, one day at university, I remember Fuzzy mentioning that he was having problems with the exhaust. There was nothing particularly unusual in this - in those days all of our cars suffered from almost daily mechanical failures. So, I thought no more about it until I was driving back to Lanarkshire later that night. In the light of the setting sun, I saw a small glow in the distance. As I got closer the glow became brighter until - yes - those actually seem to be flames.
Eventually I recognised the white Dolomite on the hard shoulder. And there was Fuzzy leaping to and fro in the twighlight, desperately trying to extinguish what was clearly an item of clothing. I tooted my horn and gave him a merry little wave of recognition. He gave me a few words of acknowledgement - I couldn't hear exactly what he said, but he waved with some vigour. So that was nice.
I asked him about this later and he explained that, when the exhaust had fallen off earlier that night, he had tied it back on with a jacket. He is a lawyer now.