Cars for girls

You're a girl, and you drive a car.

The problem is, it's not simply blue with a personalised plate and some fluffy dice. There is so much more to your car than that.

If only I had known all these things when I started driving, I would have been spared from certain embarrasment, expense, and near-death experiences. (Not me - the sheep).

Number 1: Your licence plate.
The thing about your licence plate: You have to know it. By heart.
It's like a phone number but worse because it's not automatically programmed into your phone. You actually have to remember it. When you break down on a isolated dark country road in the rain and have to call AA, they WILL ask for your licence plate number. Where possible, you want to avoid this situation:

Because you never know where zombies, rapists and axe-murderers are lurking.

Just to be difficult, your licence plate may also be called your number plate (even tho it is mostly letters), or, your 'registration' or 'rego'. Like, someone may just ask you what your registration is, and you are expected to actually know what this means.
Remember this.


Number 2: WOF
The thing about a WOF: it's illegal not to have one. 
A WOF is a piece of paper you get every 6 months that shows police your car is safe to drive. Contrary to popular belief, this is not a paper you can simply buy. I mean, you do have to buy it, but your car actually has to be safe to drive. 

And you are not allowed to be the one who decides how safe it is. Nope. You have to make a phone call to these people and ask to book your car in for a WOF.

It turns out they can still say no.

There is also a small chance your WOF person or mechanic will be old and hairy. Bummer.


 Number 3: Popping your hood.
Popping your hood, unlike popping your collar, involves certain manly skills that you probably don't have.
I'm going to break this down into steps because no-one is ever going to actually explain this to you, ever.

Step 3A: Look for the button.
Unlike an actual button, this is more of a ridiculous lever located somewhere out-of-reach (it could be anywhere in the vicinity of your ankles or butt when you are sitting in the drivers seat) that has absolutely no logical positioning whatsoever. If you are a tech geek or web designer, we could describe this 'button' as '100% counter-intuitive'.

Most likely if you grope blindly in the direction of the accelorator pedal, you will find a small groove in the plastic stuff. Dig your fingers under it and pull outwards. When that doesn't work, pull left, pull right, push sideways, shove in, wrench backwards, and then pull up.... Look in my eyes when I say this: by process of elimination, you WILL find the button and pop the hood. You will. You just need to believe you can do it.

They were probably trying to keep it out of reach of baddies.

Step 3B:
Now that you have found the magic button, you think your hard work is done, right? WRONG.

Do you have clean hands? Nice clean hands and a nice white t-shirt? NOT ANYMORE.

When you popped the magic lever-button above, you heard a popping sound but the thing is, your hood didn't actually pop open. Does this make sense? Of course not. Do you design cars? No of course you don't. Wanna know who designs cars? Me too.

Because now what you need to do is step out of the car, and walk around the front. You should probably learn to use your handbrake first.

Because the people who designed cars wanted to make this mundane experience as dangerous as possible.

...and then poke your fingers into the greasy black crack between the car and the bonnet. You are supposed to be able to feel a lever which you simply flick and the boot can be lifted up.

You will not be able to find this lever.

Poke your hands further into this crack and run them along the width of the car. You will touch numerous hard pointy objects but you will probably never find out what they are. When you retrieve your hands, they will be covered with black grease.
The good thing about the grease is it makes you look manly, which apparently is quite hot.

Exactly like the chick off Transformers

Now squat, get your eyes right inside the crack, find the hook thing and jiggle it around until this metal rod thing pops out. Then you can lift the bonnet right up, and use the metal rod to rest it on.

Now wipe those greasy hands on your fresh white top and congratulate yourself.



Number 4: Reverse Lights
The thing about reverse lights: Your car has them.

All you need to know about reverse lights is that if a car infront of you has white lights on the back, it is probably going to hit you.

Immediately remove yourself from the vicinity

Number 5 : The rev-ometer
The thing about the rev-ometer: it's not called a revometer. Nope. It's called the 'odometer'. People will think you are taking crazy pills if you talk about the revometer. No-one actually knows what 'Od's are, but it's good to know your car is keeping track of them.

It'll be FINE

Number 6: Fog-lights
I'm pretty sure these are located somewhere down by your feet but I haven't figured these out yet and am fairly certain no-one uses them. Ever. Any tips?

Shawty (it's your pretend birthday)

This is my friend Shalita when she was a gangsta. She used to be, but now she is more normal I think. Unless you piss her off.

Yo dumb mutt, get your mitts off the marbles before I stuff that mud-pipe down your mush - and tell your moll to hand over the mazuma!

Oh and it's also if she was in the 80's.

Oh and if she had botox-lips.

And if she was a 5-second cartoon drawn in paint with no mouse and using the wrong hand.

Other than that it's pretty much 100% photo-realistic.

A Eugoogely

I wish I had seen your small squeaky face properly before you died. Then it wouldn't have been all squished and I could tell people how cute you were and it wouldn't be lying.

I try to remember you like this

See how you nibbled your cheese into a love heart?
You aren't mangled or crushed one bit.

I only knew you for a week and a half, but it felt like years. To think I only met you that Thursday...

Thursday, 1am

I was in my cosy nest, finally drifting off into Lala land...

It's important to understand that I had recently contracted Zombie Virus and the fact that I even managed to start falling asleep was a miracle. The mere act of breathing was a workout, and I was convinced I could feel spiders crawling around in my nasal cavities.
But against all odds, I was finally getting there...

My favourite of all lands

 
...And it was going peachily. Pretty much all my fantasies were about to come true. See that pink thing galloping in from the right?


I shall name you Kenza and you shall be my pony

  Yep, life was good. Even my inner-ear-induced dizziness couldn't stop me from enjoying a good dose of lucid dreaming....

But, suddenly, my dreams were interrupted, by the tiniest, tinniest, sound.

Kenza was gone. 

In a bubble of vaporised candy farts

I would never get to taste that ponylicious candy.
Why did I have to be conscious? It wasn't fair. I was so alone.

And so awake, with nothing but the disgusting crawling sensation of my own virus-infested sinuses.
  


A whole fleet of these living in my boogeys


3am

After hours of painstaking attempts at breathing through my nostrils, I began getting sleepy again...
At last! Candy dreams would be mine!
I was already congratulating myself in anticipation.

How could I forget.


But I was wrong again.
Just when it was getting to the good part, my sugar bubble was burst.




"Ames," I said to myself, "Either you have fluid in your inner ear, or your room is haunted, or there is a mouse in here"

I'm not going to go into detail of the rest of the personal discussion I had with myself that night (it was personal), but I will say that I decided it was just me, with my zombie virus hallucinations at full wop.


Friday, 1am

*Skritch, skritch*
*Skritchetty skritch-skritch*
*Skritchettysssskrittety scroo*

*meep meep*
*squeak*
*shuffle shuffle*

*thwack*
*squeak*

*SkritchetyskritchSKRITCHETTYSSSKKKRRITCHETTYSCROOOO!SCROOO-YOOO!"

I was upset that the mouse had told me to go screw myself, but decided to languish in my bed with the spiders instead of trying to do something about it.

Saturday, 10am:
I laid 2 traps.

1am:
See Friday

Sunday 9am:
I laid 2 more traps. That makes 4 traps.
Four traps loaded with fragrant temptations such as almonds, peanut butter, walnuts and extra tasty cheese. I was jealous.
Four traps under my bed.
Four traps to potentially snap my toes.

1am:
See Friday

Monday, 3pm:

I considered leaving a note for him under the bed.

If only Tittles could read English. But he couldn't, and I couldn't speak Mouse, so I had to try a different approach.

1am:
...An approach involving Ninja.

I crawled out of bed in the darkness, trying to breathe silently, or at least in a way that didn't sound like I was dying.

I felt raw and pumped with pure killing-machine energy and performed a few stunts in my pyjamas:

Mainly to show off

I then honed down on the direction the noise seemed to be coming from.
But I am human and humans can't see in the dark. And this made me feel quite ashamed and pathetic because I sensed that Tittles was watching me, but I couldn't see him.



He's right there somewhere...


I flicked on the lights and caught sight of him playing musical-statues under the bed. Blatantly. He stared me down with his right eye and I got the feeling he had some ninja moves of his own.



I may have imagined the nunchucks

That little punk just wouldn't die.
He was too darn smart and unafraid.

I didn't know how to get him from not-under the bed, so positioned a few traps around him.

Punk

There was no chance he could get out alive.


Tuesday, 9am
I searched eagerly for his corpse.

All I found were empty traps with the food nibbled off.

And some pellets

This was not right! At all!
I had 2 types of traps, 4 flavours of bait, and all the mass and cunning of a full-size human.

It was humbling...... and enlightening....the strangest thing started to happen....

R.E.S.P.E.C.T (just a little bit)

These emotions were ridiculous. I was a lean mean mouse-crushing machine. Respect shouldn't be in my vocabulary. Surely I was just overtired.

Wednesday, 8am

I didn't care if it was wrong.
I didn't care if the little turd was holding me hostage, night after night.
I didn't care that I was becoming more, and more, and more exhausted.
All I cared about was that little Tommy Tittle Mouse.

I wondered if I should remove the traps.
We could be room-mates?

I should never have named him

Thursday

He was just so clever!
So cute!
So smart!

I was just like a first-time mother with an ugly baby.


"oh Tommy you are the pet I never had"

I scarcely noticed how dishevelled and death-like I had become.

Have you ever had Stockholm Syndrome? From vermin?
I can be your claim to fame.


Friday

Ah Tommy your night-noises are so familiar now

Saturday

It's as if I've always known you.

Thursday

 

I don't have the heart to finish this post.




******
UPDATE: We buried him in the wheely bin. He was good mouse. So smart. :(


****
UPDATE 2: I found your cousin, Tommy. Can you hear me from the other side? He was sitting on the carpet dead-still and I went and picked him up with a paper towel and he just snuggled into my hand and closed him eyes like a sleepy little bear and it was SOOO CUTE!!!

And then Dad said "Flush it down the toilet!"

And I said "NO!"

And placed him carefully at the bottom of the (now empty) wheely bin. He will be happy there until he moves into his new place at the rubbish dump. I feel like we really bonded.

Probing Questions.

It was a fatal mistake. I didn't mean to do it. I shouldn't have done it.

It just happened...

I may or may not have glanced in the direction of the retail assistant and given him the teeniest, tiniest, briefest polite-greeting half-smile.

 You know the kind I mean - I didn't even make eye contact it was so brief. So very brief that it was, admittedly, probably more rude than polite. The kind you give to strangers when you make awkward eye contact on the train.

(Incidentally this is also the kind of silent greeting that can acquire you some serious train-stalker action. I should have learnt my lesson last time...)

But there he was - like a genie from a puff of smoke - over my shoulder while I browsed the knitwear section...

I was stunned for 2 long seconds by the proximity of his teeth to my own facial region.
There was no need to say anything. As I was verbally barraged with the following soliloquy I could only stare blankly:

I told him that I was just having a look. This did not deter him.

My non-commited approach towards any of the garments being swung in my face had him a tiny bit worried. But it was the kind of worry that only sharpened his determination to break down each and every boundary between the two of us.

I was feeling somewhat violated from these probing questions, while he literally followed me around the shop. Literally. Switching back to more relevant topics when I clammed up like an oyster.

I think he was just beginning to grasp that I was a stone cold ice queen and (as I'd told him) wanted to rumage through the clothes on my own, when I found a garment I knew I should try. I knew I should...but...

 He smellt my indecision like a rat and instantaneously buffeted me with blows of:

In true cheerleading-squad style.

I scuttled for the privacy of the changing room, hoping it would be a haven of peace and solace. But as his voice incessantly chatted away outside the door -

- I realised the daunting situation I was facing:

The changing room was just a small cubicle with a mirror so close that I could only view the garment with a scope of about 10 centimetres. The jersey cost almost $80 and it was kind of what I'd been looking for.... but in order to make a decision about my money I would have to get a better view at what I was wearing. There were big mirrors on the walls outside the cubicles.

In a perfectly rational attempt to avoid the certain barrage of jabber from the Retail Assistant, I tried instead to flatten myself back against the far wall. This gave me an extra 15cm of viewing scope... but still not enough.

I glanced towards the chatter.

I would have to open the door.

I took a deep breath and twisted the lock.

His eyes were practically rolled back in his head with the anticipation of a sale. I tried to shrink back into the far corners of my cave but his stare never left the wooly shroud around my shoulders, which I now realised was actually quite fugly and I didn't want to buy it at all.

"It's not really my thing." I said.
"IT LOOKS AMAZING ON YOU! IT'S BOTH COMFORTABLE AND GOOD-LOOKING!"

"I don't really like the look."

The details on the ensuing converstation are going to be a little boring. It was basically a big fat cycle of

and my own (progressively more blunt) objections.

I was on trial for not buying something I didn't want, because for every reason that I offered, I was given an answer arguing the opposite.

Eventually I handed back the clothes and for a second I almost saw this:

Before he spun around, and, literally, stalked off. He may have even said "FINE" and gone to sulk.


And that's how I ended up with no warm clothes this winter.