Bad Carma

Journal

Bad Carma

I’ve had a string of calls from Crazy Uncle John today, all related in one way or another to the Neon I just sold him. Normally to have a day like this you have to be Norman Wisdom or Jim Carey. Or, as it turns out, just being Crazy Uncle John will do.

First call he made was regarding the car battery being flat and that he couldn’t figure how to open the hood in order to get to it. Despite a warning chime sounding if you so much as think about leaving the car with the lights on, Crazy Uncle John had managed to leave them on all night and the battery was as dead as a doornail. After explaining where the release mechanism was, he went off to sort it and all was well for a while.

I decided to call him back later on, just to see if he had it all sorted. He was in the process of pushing the car along the road so that he was far enough away from home so that the RAC would come out to him. I left him to it, but I pictured the scene in my head and it seemed kind of funny.

A while after this he calls back having managed to get the car started, but rolling over a nail somewhere along the line had given him a puncture and he had to pay a substantial amount to replace the tyre. I agreed that this was bad luck, but was glad he had the car started again.

All goes quiet for an hour or so before I get a call asking where the remote release is for the trunk. I tell him it’s in the glove compartment, he thanks me and hangs up. It’s less than sixty seconds before he calls again.

I have no idea how, and neither does he at this point in time, but somehow he has locked himself out of the car with only the trunk being open. Better still, the keys are in the ignition and the engine is running. If it wasn’t for the tone of his voice I would think he was taking the piss with this latest revelation.

I tell him that he might be able to push the rear seats forward and climb in that way. He calls me back a minute later, actually inside the trunk, but unable to move the seats. “Weird.” I offer; “I always thought you could do that.”

Fliss calls from the other room to remind me that the spare key-fob is in the folder with the owners manual and he could open it with that, so I relay this to Uncle John and he heads off to get it.

Twenty minutes later and Uncle John is back in the car, driving along and he calls me to ask if I know the code for the radio, because it’s locked itself due to the battery being flat. I didn’t know the code – I imagine it’s in the owners manual somewhere, but by this time I could only feel sorry for the man. What a catalogue of mishaps due to things that, in a year and a half of owing that car, never happened to us.

Hopefully he’ll get the radio sorted, and maybe in future he’ll pay attention to the warning chime that indicates “You are leaving the car with the lights on” or “You are leaving the car with the keys still in the ignition.”

Update : At about half past nine this evening, Uncle John texted me with “That was my Frank Spencer day!” Which is a classic example of not having a sense of humour failure when all indicators say you should already have gone postal!

I texted him back with the suggestion that for a full Frank Spencer Day he should still be locked in the trunk! :o)

Rob