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Wrong turn in wife’s car

There’s more to driving your spouse’s vehicle than you think

My wife was travelling. In her absence, she had asked me to drive her car once or twice, so her car battery wouldn’t keel over and go dead. So I did. But it wasn’t as easy as it sounds.

I started off confidently. I took her car key, whirled it around a couple of times whistling lightly, and then went down to her car. I pressed the remote button once, then again, then a few more times in rapid succession. I walked closer, pointed it with great care towards the car and tried it again. No lights blinked. I tugged at the door. Nothing.

I telephoned my wife. ‘Your car key doesn’t work!’ I complained.

‘Oh, the remote needs batteries. Use it like a normal key’ she said.

Normal key! Of course! Senility! I felt terribly foolish. I had been using a remote for so long that I had quite forgotten there was a straight-forward way of opening the car door.

‘Common sense!’ my wife chided.

I was stung. ‘Common sense would have been to get the remote fixed’ I retorted lamely.

Then, noticing how dusty the car was. I called the watchman who cleans the car. ‘Why is it so dirty?’ I asked him.

‘Madam is away’ he replied.

‘So?’ I wasn’t going to have any of his dashed cheek.  ‘So I thought there was no need to waste precious water’ he said, with an air of a man who had used his trump card.

I grunted and got in. I adjusted the rear view mirror. I looked around trying to figure out how to adjust the side view mirrors. Then I worked on my seat. I managed to push my seat back and tilt the back-rest but couldn’t find any way to raise the seat. Also, it seemed to incline sharply downwards going back. I felt like I was sitting inside a bucket. But anyway, I decided to get a move on. Less than a minute later, the car beeped. It was low on fuel. So I drove it to the nearest petrol bunk. ‘Park that side’ the attendant said. 

‘Why?’ I demanded to know.

‘Because your fuel tank is on the left’ he replied, simply.

Oh! I hadn’t realized that. I was so used to my own car. Again, feeling very silly, I drove around, parked on the correct side and waited. The attendant tapped on the window. ‘You have to open the fuel tank’ he shouted. He seemed very displeased with my ineptitude. For a moment or two, I was in a daze. Open it? The fuel tank in my car opened from the outside. Apparently this one didn’t.

How did one open the fuel tank? I stared down near my feet. I found a couple of knobs. I grabbed one and gave it a tug. Promptly, the hood opened up. The attendant gave me a look of utter contempt. He quickly strode over, shut it and returned. Not wishing to waste any more time on an utterly incompetent man, he opened my door, pulled the correct lever and went ahead with his business while I sat sheepishly and fiddled with the FM channels.

Soon I was on the road heading towards my work place. As I was about to enter the parking lot I looked for my swipe card. But of course, it had left it in my car! And as luck would have it, there was a watchman stationed there that morning to prevent tailgating. It took all my guile to sneak in.

While returning from work, I decided to stop by at the barber’s. I parked the car and texted 7275. Deciding that there was no point in taking the phone along with me, I left it in the car. Twenty minutes later, half way through the haircut, a terrible, sinking realization came to me. I had paid the parking fee for my car, not my wife’s.  I groaned inwardly. Was this going to be the most expensive haircut of my life?

 

P.G. Bhaskar is a private banker and author