Let's Waste Time, Chasing Cars

“You’re entirely bonkers.  But I’ll tell you a secret.  All the best people are”

-          Lewis Carroll,  Alice in Wonderland

 Regular readers (thank you, I love you etc.) will hopefully know by now that even though His Nibs and I drive each other around the bend, he is my all-time favourite person.  He is funny and bold and even though he is careful with his funds, he is kind and generous of spirit.  He’d have to be, I suppose.  Sometimes putting up with me takes a kind and generous spirit.

He is the type of man who, after his first trip to Asia, saved for years to support a little school he saw there, and bought them solar panels and a computer.  When he went to Nicaragua he did something similar for a market gardening project he’d seen there.

He is a very good person.  Far better than me. I was of very little use, I just turned up to these places as his sidekick, and taught the children how to Irish dance (not that I know how to Irish dance, but they didn’t know that), and drank rum, and chatted to the locals. 

And offered endless opinions and advice on how he should spend the money he saved all year while I was spending my wages on handbags and eyeliners.

You might be surprised to learn that being such a kind hearted soul is not necessarily always a good thing.  Sometimes his soft heart gets him into trouble.

His Nibs has an unusual and unshakeable fondness for 1990’s Toyota Corolla saloon cars.  Green ones.

If I had to guess, I’d say at least six identical green Corollas.  He loves them.  He swears that they are the best cars ever built and there’ll never be another car like them.

Last Saturday morning His Nibs informed me that he had agreed to buy yet another Corolla.  The same year as his own, 1997, low mileage, for the sum of €700.  And that he wouldn’t be getting rid of his own car.

My questioning commenced.  Why did he want a car exactly the same as the one he had?  More importantly, what was he going to do with two cars? Did he not think he should go for something newer?  Didn’t he think €700 was a lot for a car that’s twenty years old?

He batted off my questions calmly.  He was happy with his decision.

We have a great arrangement in this house.  We have a bank account each, and a joint one between us.  As long as you put the agreed sum for the mortgage and bills in the joint account every month what you do with the money in your own account is your own business.  His Nibs treats his as a normal person would.  I spend mine in a week and then beg for bailouts from him for the other three weeks of the month.  The situation suits me well.  I can’t speak for His Nibs.

I agreed to company him to the seller’s house the following morning, so he could drive the new purchase home.  Sunday morning rolled around, and His Nibs arrived in our room, coffee in hand, and woke me up.  The fact that he brought me coffee and didn’t wait for me to roar at him that I was awake told me that he had something to say.

He looked awkward and uncomfortable, and eventually blurted out that he was sorry he’d agreed to buy the car.  “Why?” I asked him “Is it because having three cars between two people is ridiculous?”

No, he informed me, it was because to be completely honest, despite the low mileage, this car was in similar condition to his own, although possibly less rusty. 

“You agreed to pay seven hundred euros for a car no better than your own?”  The man never ceases to surprise me.  “Have you gone completely mental?  Sure it’s not worth five hundred.”

“I felt terrible for the woman.  She was desperate to get rid of it.  I felt really sorry for her.”

I started to give many opinions then, about how desperation to get rid of an ancient rustbucket is rarely cured by asking for such a high price.  “No wonder she was desperate” I scoffed “She couldn’t believe her luck.  Desperate to get you to agree.”

“Ah no, love, stop.  The poor woman.  It’s very sad.  It’s her brother’s car, and he died.”

You know the way, when you’ve been married to someone for a long time, you know when there’s something that’s not being said?  I knew.  Because His Nibs was wearing his “I don’t know whether I should tell you this” face.

I immediately arranged my “If you don’t tell me whatever is on your mind I’ll nag you until you lose the will to live” face.

The owner had died in the car.  Not in a car crash, he rushed to assure me.  He’d just died.  And then he was in the car for a long time, until somebody found him.  So long, in fact, that the wipers, which had been on when he died, eventually wore out and left a big black streak across the windscreen.

I stared at him.  The thought of driving around, in the seat where the poor man had sat for hours, waiting to be discovered, gave me the complete and utter creeps.

While he was at it, he decided to tell me the rest of the sad story.  Because of this large and unexpected outlay, there would be no bailouts for me this month.

All scoffing stopped.  I announced that His Nibs was not allowed to buy the car.  This is against all the rules in our house.  The only things we’re not allowed to do are run away with other people, and forbid each other from doing things.

But His Nibs didn’t seem to notice.  The only problem he informed me, was that he had shaken hands on the deal.  He just couldn’t renege on it now.  It wouldn’t be right.

This is what I mean about it not always being a good thing to be such a good person.

He was buying the car from pity, and now he had to follow through because he shook hands on the deal.  I wish he was as honourable when he says he’ll do the housework.  I should shake hands with him every time he promises to wash the floors.

I invited him to ring the woman and inform her that I had said that if he bought the car he had to sleep in it, because he wasn’t allowed back in the house.

I also informed him that the days of a handshake being reason to spend seven hundred euro on a car he’d have to turn around and pay to dispose of are long gone.

He felt so bad that we had to have some practice phone calls.  This is a true story.  Last Sunday morning, two people in their forties sat on a bed in our house and practiced phone calls.  I even held my thumb and pinkie finger to my face in the phone gesture, and started the conversation with the words “ring ring”, for authenticity.

At first His Nibs was himself and I was the seller.  But he felt that I was being far too laid back and nice about the sale being stopped, and we had to swap roles.

The first practice call consisted of him pretending to burst into racking sobs and shout about his broken heart and sad memories.  I suggested that if the woman needed so badly to get rid of the car she should probably lower the price.  Or give it to a scrap dealer.

This irritated His Nibs, so we had to have another practice.  This time he, as the seller, became enraged when I said I wasn’t buying the car and began roaring furiously and threatening to send sons and grandsons up after me to beat me up for my fickleness.

“Does she have sons and grandsons?”

“Oh yes, she had a couple of grandchildren with her when I met her yesterday.”

“Ah sure, then we’re grand.  She’s probably been married.”  I explained that no reasonable wife would expect a man to openly defy his spouse.

“Tell her I’m going mental” I suggested “which I will be, if you don’t ring her and call off this foolishness soon”.

So he rang her.  She was a lovely woman, perfectly reasonable.  I know this because I made him put the phone on speaker.  I’m very nosey.

I think he was secretly disappointed.  There’s not that many old Corollas for sale anymore, apparently.