What do ya do?

What would you do in this situation.

I left work today at 4:45pm, normal time for me these days and went to my car. When I arrived at the car park I waited in the foyer for the lift. These was this suit waiting there as well, the lift had to come down from the 6th floor so we waited. There was a notice up on the wall and it caught my attention. Something to do with tram works out on Bourke St, what that had to do with the car park is beyond me but I digress. While reading this notice, the suit moved in closer to see what the notice was about. I smelt something a little pongy as he moved in, but I moved back as the lift arrived and I gave him some space.
The suit walked into the lift first and I followed, he was going to the 2nd, me the 3rd. He says to me, what's that notice about, I explained briefly about the tram works and we both agreed that it seemed silly to be hung up on the wall in a car park. As we talked, I notice that pong again, this time I recognized it. It was Alcohol, not just a little, but enough to give this guy a real stench. I then noticed his red eyes and slight stagger as he walked out on the 2nd floor. The door closed and I realized. Shit, this is a car park. He's getting in a car! He's going to be in front or behind me as we leave the car park. Shit! I should have stopped him, and then what. Flatten him and steal his keys? Block his car with mine? (I don't need any more repairs) Convince him to catch a taxi? Get his rego and call the cops? Do nothing?
I don't know, do you get involved or not?

Situation no 2.
Driving to work today, I drove down Lygon St, passing the cemetery where the tram runs down the middle of the road, through a series of safety zones. Now for the uninitiated, a safety zone is a fenced off tram stop in the middle of the road where cars are not allowed to go along the tracks. This gives the area the name "safety zone", you are safe from car traffic. Well, this morning, a dickhead in a shiny grey/silver Renault hatchback decided it was above the law and zoomed through the safety zone. Traffic was pretty bad this morning and this impatient bastard felt the need to risk hitting a pedestrian and save him/her self 2 minutes in traffic. What the FU@K. This is not the first time I've seen this, it must have happened on about 8 occasions this year alone. Where are the cops when you need them. In all the cases, these guys fly past and you have a split second to try and catch the plate. If you happen to see it, What do you do? In this situation, I would ring the cops. They might do something, they might not, but at least I'd have done something about it. If there were kids at those tram stops, they don't always stand by your side. These bastards (the drivers) need to by sidelined. I'd be tempted to put my car in the way to stop these pricks coz that's all they are.

Wood'ya believe it?

This is a little update regarding the car I'm selling.

I rang the dude that has my car last week, and spoke to his mum.
"He's not here now, He went to the dentist and hasn't come back yet".
"Oh, OK, let him know I called and get him to call me back. It's about the car" As if she didn't know, she's been hassling him to shift it ASAP.
So then I just waited and waited, thinking how long does he need at the dentist. 7 days later I get this call at work.
"Mate! How-ah you? You's bin OK? I've been sick mate, really sick mate. Flu's bin killing me mate, you haff no idea mate"
"JP, to what do I owe the pleasure of your call?"
"Mate, sorry I didn't get back to ya, bin sick n that"
"Ok, no problems, what'd happening?"
"Mate, I got a little more money for you. I got a fousand dollars for you. If you come ova on Friday next week I'll haff it for ya"
"Ok, next Friday?"
"Yeah, fa sure mate. If i'm not heyah, you's can get if off my mum. I'll leaf it wiff her"
"OK JP, so that means you have about 1500 left?"
"Yeah, that's it. I'll haff it for ya next monf"
"OK, JP, I'll just hang here by my thumb nails waiting, I'm sure you won't be long"

The episode where my car was banged up.

Driving home from work one night, it was actually the day after my 40th. It should have been a good day, it should have been a good month, but for some reason I had this nagging feeling that March was not going to be the great time of year it usually is. (Possible self fulfilling prophecy coming up)

March 7th was a day when it rained, not unusual for Melbourne, but it hadn’t rained for over a month. I was driving home after a not too stressful day at work and decided to take a different route home. Normally it’s High street north, but that day I decided to head up Heidelberg Rd. The roads were wet and slippery, but the rain had stopped for the day. I was heading towards a set of lights which had just turned green. Got through the intersection and then quickly slowed (???) and stopped as my lane (the middle lane) had come to a complete stop. Looking ahead, I couldn’t see what was holding everything up. All I could really see was the taxi in front and a large minivan in front of him.

The cars on the outer lane were zooming by, so I started that process of looking back and wanting to shift lanes, but before I could even turn to the mirror, I hear a massive screech, very close and very loud.

Time stops and I looked in the rear view only to see some balding young driver (well, younger than me) in his Nissan Pulsar, eyes shutting and teeth clenching as he embraced for impact. Seeing this, I went rigid too, arms stiff, legs stiff on the brake.

BANG!!!!!!

Nowhere to go, he hit me fair square in the middle of the boot. My car is a family sized vehicle so he didn’t end up joining me in the back seat of my car; his seat belt probably helped him stay put too. The impact was not only at the rear end, he was travelling at top speed (i.e. the speed limit I’m guessing) and pushed my car forward about 4 or 5 metres, unfortunately the taxi was only 2 metres in front of me.

BANG!!!

Into the taxi. Shit. I could see the face of the taxi passenger in the back seat turning as I lurched forward and hit her ride. The force of the impact moved my driver’s seat back along the rails and the back of the seat into a sleeping position. When everything stopped, I saw the taxi driver get out of his car, running back to me.
“Are you OK mate?” He says.
I couldn’t talk. It was my birthday the day before, shit like this shouldn’t happen when you are 40 and 1 day old.
“You OK?”
Still couldn’t speak, started to feel crap. I felt emotion welling up inside, an unwilling participant in a metal sandwich. The prophecy has started to become true.
“Sir, you ok?”
Then the culprit came up to check on me.
“Sorry, sorry, are you ok?”
“I just need a few minutes to regroup” I said.

They went to the back of my car and inspected the damage. I had settled down after a couple of minutes and all the anger went out of me. I guess it would have been easy to get out and thump him, what purpose would that serve. Let’s hear what he has to say before I push him under a truck…..

I climbed out of the wreck and surveyed the damage. The other two were at the back and I headed there. The Pulsar driver was very apologetic, he explained how he wasn’t concentrating on the lane he was in, he was looking to his inside as a van was creeping into the lane and he wanted to avoid him, but taking his eyes off the van, he then realised that our lane wasn’t moving. Nowhere to go! Bang! The damage at the back of my car was enough to buckle the boot and hinder it from opening; the front of the car had what looked like minor damage, but the bonnet wouldn't open either. My car still ran, which was a darn site better than the Pulsar, it was really banged up. His engine had stopped and it wasn’t going to start again.

We pushed him around a corner and we did the usual swapping of details. His car wasn’t his car, it belonged to his grandma. Poor granny. Luckily he was covered by her insurance, there wasn’t going to be a problem, well, not from that point of view. A couple of phone calls later and I had the repairer on my doorstep ready to take the car away in the morning. The insurance people were on the case and I had a rental car organised to get me through the next couple of weeks. How long could it take to repair what looked like some pretty minor damage, after all, the car still ran.

A few days later after very little contact from the repairers, I received a distressing call. Not that they couldn’t repair the car, but that it was going to cost $15,000 to repair and wouldn’t be ready for another 6 weeks (2 months after the crash). Shit! So they starte talking about writing the car off, and I started looking at new cars. As soon as the euphoria of getting a new car took over, they rang back and told me that the repairs are going ahead and there wasn't going to be a write off.

So what do I do for a car while I waited? My car is a leased vehicle through work which I was going to be paying for, without having it. The HR guys couldn’t or wouldn’t help me, bastards, and then to top it off, I had to pay for the rental cars myself and hope that my insurer will recoup the costs from the third party (insurance talk for the Pulsar driver). Over the two months, I begged, borrowed and lent the following: Toyota Camry, Subaru WRX, Toyota Land Cruiser, Ford Falcon, Toyota Corolla, Toyota Avalon and my mums Holden Berlina. If only I had access to my old Mazda, that would have saved me a lot of trouble.
Update: I decided to call JP today, funnily enough I spoke to his mum and he wasn’t home. He’d call me back later. Let’s see how long it takes.

Anyway, I eventually got my car back, 2 months, 1 week and 4 days after the accident. The car had to go back due to a couple of minor things, but I wanted them fixed to make sure it was paid for by the insurance, not me.

The moral of the story is, stick to your regular route home. Crap moral, but I’m going to stick with it.

Ciao.
Forza Ferrari, get back on top.

Episode where I am trying to sell my car.

For the past 2 years or so, I’ve been trying to sell my old Mazda 323. I no longer need it as I’ve replaced it with a superior family sized vehicle (with Turbo). One of my neighbors offered to sell it on my behalf as he is a mechanic and knew a few guys in the trade. Firstly he was going to fix the minor faults and then he would shop it around. He did this, the faults were minor and he probably spent about $250 in total. So we sort of agreed on about $6000 and all I wanted was about $5000 and whatever remained, he could keep. Well he came close about 2 times, each time the purchaser agreed to a price and then they couldn’t get the finance. Usually a Uni student and Mum/Dad didn’t have the ability to raise the $6000 so we held out thinking that someone would eventually come up with the cash.

2 years on and not a single bite, until recently. JP (the mechanic) and I agreed that he would buy the car and use it himself; he had a new job and needed to drive long distances. The Mazda runs on the smell of an oily rag so it was ideal. Then the clutch went, Shit!! So now he’s got the parts to replace the clutch and he’s been sitting on it for 2 months or more. The car is sitting in his driveway and he’s done nothing. Then, one day, he gives me a deposit and I think, fantastic he’s finally sold it. Truth is, he has promised it to a mate who will pay the full amount, but he needs to fix the clutch first. So once again, I’m sitting here waiting for him to replace that F@(#!ng clutch so I can see the rest of my money.

You will notice, I’m a patient man, I may drive a fast car but when it comes to human nature I’m a softy. Right now I’m over worrying about it. I’ll call him one of these days, to speak to his mum and find out that he’s not home or he’s asleep, or at work, yada, yada, yada.

Confliction.

When I allowed myself to watch Big Brother, I used to sit there and watch Rachael cause confliction between herself and the other housemates. What is confliction? Well we all thought is was a concocted word made up in Rachael's mind, but let the truth be told, confliction exists in some dictionaries. Here, check it out. Its a noun, of the noun conflict (please explain!).

Away for a little while.

Going on a short holiday starting tomorrow, so I probably won't have time to post anything new. but I'm just going to jot down a couple of ideas here so I remember them later.
1) The episode where my car crashed. (Don't forget the photos)
2) The episode where I tried to sell my other car.
3) The episode where my son writes another short story.
4) The episode where I explain how I found love on the net.
5) The episode where we find out the true meaning of life.
6) The episode where describe my NASCAR driving experience.

That should do it for now.

Ciao.

Out of the mouth of babes...

My son asked me a difficult question tonight. It wasn't a tough one to answer, but it just made me think. He stood there and asked me "Dad, if you had to go to hospital, who would look after us?” Being a widower, I guess this is a valid question. The two children and I live by ourselves and with family nearby so the answer is simple, either the grandparents or one of their uncles or aunties.
So you see, the answer is simple, but he didn’t like those answers. He wanted someone else to be in charge. He wanted himself to be in charge! I looked at him a little quizzically and he then explained. “I should be in charge and if anything happened I could ring grandpa or auntie and they could come and take care of things”. Not sure if he fully thought his plan through though, making lunches, getting to school, the washing, preparing dinner etc, but they both have shown a keenness to learn.
Begs the question though, in my situation, if I was in hospital, who would be best to look after them? At least he wasn’t planning for life after my death; hopefully he’ll be well into his 70’s before that becomes an issue.