Bad Carma (and bad puns)

I have found out over the last 48 hours that bright yellow liquid spewing violently from the water tank of my car and cascading down through my previously pristine engine is not a good thing. And that nothing under the bonnet, under any circumstances, should be any more exciting than a dull grey (and certainly not bright yellow).

Two days ago on my way to, ironically, a motor racing event my car started to make unsettling grinding noises.

I thought initially that the noise might not be attributed to my car and perhaps it was some other poor unfortunate soul’s vehicle that was falling apart.

Then, as the realisation that it was actually my car slowly filtered through my deluded brain, I toyed with the idea of a loose mudguard was brushing over the tarmac. Or perhaps I was dragging a large rodent or a sizeable shrub along the ground beneath the car (oh such wishful thinking in hindsight).

Except I wasn’t moving. I was at traffic lights.

I hesitantly turned down the music. My car has an array of creaking and groaning noises that come from all manner of plastic fittings within its interior. I have affectionately come to know these inner rumblings as its quirks, the affection only being present when I can’t actually hear them because I have the music turned up as loud as is required in order to drown out these eccentricities that older cars acquire.

But, as the sound was cutting through my stereo, and it wasn’t a noise that I had already learnt to filter out (much like yelping puppies and squeaky toys), I knew something was very wrong.

The noise stopped. I sat very still, hoping that if I didn’t acknowledge what had just occurred and the possible existence of a problem, it would dematerialise and I could continue on my journey.

And then I saw my temperature gauge.

It was, admittedly, a fairly hot day, the country finally remembering that we were advancing to warmer weather and had not, in fact, skipped summer and headed straight on to autumn as it had incorrectly assumed over the last few weeks, forcing us to endure torrential rain on a daily basis. But my car doesn’t tend to get grouchy in hot weather, unlike its stroppy owner who is vocally uncomfortable for all but approximately 10 days of the year (and never appropriately dressed), and then I have numerous clauses and conditions (wind chill; sweat production).

I’ve only ever seen the gauge head northwards on one occasion. And that wasn’t pretty.

So call it female intuition, or call it just plain bloody obvious, but when the temperature gauge was heading steadily towards the red area (which I imagine is colour coded for a specific reason) I had a feeling something was very, very wrong.

I pulled into a side road and did the only thing I knew how to do under the circumstances: I called my dad.

Hesitantly, I did as he advised and checked under the bonnet, where I unwittingly unveiled the catastrophe that lay beneath. The bright yellow liquid was pumping itself effortlessly out of the top of the water tank and down through the rest of the engine as if there was nothing out of the ordinary and this was what it was supposed to do.

At this point my dad suggested gently that perhaps I needed to call my breakdown cover and that it wasn’t, let’s say, looking too good.

So, after silently praising my absent boyfriend for putting all the breakdown details in the glove compartment (and not filed away in a generic ‘car’ folder that was very much not in the car, where I would have put them), I called the breakdown and tried my best, in the way only a mildly hysterical woman who’s only understanding of the inner workings of her car is where to put the screenwash knows how, to explain the symptoms.

I waited to be rescued. And waited. And waited.

I phoned my dad. And my sister. And my boyfriend’s sister. And then I sat.

The car was sweltering. I couldn’t go anywhere. I discovered quickly there was nothing at all in any way fun to do in my car when broken down. I made a mental note to buy Travel Scrabble for the glove compartment. Or at least a bloody biro.

Finally, I was rescued and towed to a garage, where I abandoned my car and began trudging home, fighting back tears yet totally unaware of the fate that was bestowed upon her.

After an evening of drowning my sorrows in raspberry beer, I awaited the verdict.

The news had already been broken to me by my dad and a breakdown guy (who’d both never encountered yellow liquid spewing out of their water pipes, my car evolving quickly into a patient with an unsightly tropical disease that would have various disfigured genitalia attached to it in textbooks for years to come) that it might be the head gasket.

And that this was going to be pricey.

But I hadn’t even considered entertaining the notion that I wouldn’t ever have her back that had gently been eased in front of me by my parents. Not until the mechanic, with a total lack of gentle cushioning (which was probably for the best if I were ever to digest and actually accept the information), told me that I’d basically be a bloody idiot if I were to get it fixed.

72 hours ago, my car was worth around £900.

I was offered £50 for it today by the garage, to save having her towed and scrapped. They’ll most likely strip her down, for her alloys and tires, or rebuild her and sell her on.

I keep thinking about her, sat on the forecourt, wondering, waiting. I keep imagining her being torn apart, her faulty guts ripped out. My boyfriend’s sister blames Disney for our unsettling relationship with inanimate objects and, yes I admit, it probably wasn’t wonderfully healthy to stroke the dashboard and apologise when I’d completely failed to put the car in any sort of gear. But she was mine, my own, something I so badly needed when I have no home and my partner is on the other side of the world.

She was my space, my comfort, everything in her was where I’d put it, where I felt it belonged. I chose where to drive, I chose what tunes to accompany me. She was my consistency. She’d taken me through everything. We’d bought her together, my boyfriend and I, just a year ago. Our first joint purchase. And she’d taken me home the night he left for New Zealand.

So tomorrow I will go and exchange my log book and MOT for £50 and the internal casing of my car stereo.

But my sister pointed out that £50 will buy 10 bottles of wine. So if you see what may appear to be a very small child purchasing wine in bulk (with a few tins of beans thrown in), give her a wide birth. Trust me, she needs the booze.