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...and here it is. You knew it wouldn't be long before I was back with another story about my dad.
Yes, this is another one about his car. As you know, he had to start parking it away from the house because a massive roundabout was built right outside our gate. It made it very difficult for me to cross to the pub opposite. However, by some miracle, I managed to make it there...every night! Getting back was far more tricky...mostly because, after seven pints of lager and lime and a couple of whiskey chasers, I'd sort of forgotten how to walk without falling into bushes.
So...because of the sticky poster episode, we tried to encourage my dad to park his car somewhere else. Eventually, after a few years of having nails cleverly positioned under his tyres to puncture them when he drove off and several oversized penis engravings 'keyed' so very artistically on his bonnet and boot, he gave in. We were all so relieved that he would no longer be parking his beloved (old banger) car outside the pub where so many pissed maniacs would pour from each and every night (not me...I was in the pub/bush opposite remember).
So...he decided to park it in the back streets behind our house. It was quite a walk to get to it and I hated getting a lift from him to go out anywhere. By the time we'd walked to his car, I might has well have walked to where I was going in the first place and I was so knackered, I almost couldn't be bothered to actually go out anymore...but I did...I should get to the main story.
My dad came home one evening in a foul mood. He started moaning about these same people who are 'getting' him. You remember those people...they didn't 'get' him last time. Well, they were back and trying to 'get' him again. He held in his hand, his car arial...all bent up. It was totally unusable. He was fuming. The next morning, he left for work clutching a metal coat hanger. Yes, we all know why. Anyway, every night from then on, he'd bring it in with him and, every morning, he'd take it. Unfortunately, it didn't do the job properly and my dad couldn't hear the radio in his car very well, so he decided to attach it permanently somehow. He was very good at all that sort of stuff (being a car mechanic), so he did actually do it. Then, what a surprise, he went to his car one morning to find it all bent up like you wouldn't believe. Every morning, he would straighten it out before he drove to work and every morning, it would be all bent up again. In the end, he couldn't be bothered to straighten it. It was time to say goodbye to any kind of street cred I had left and a big fat hello to riding around in a car which looked like it had an electronic buzzer game permanently stuck to its bonnet!
ANYway...one day, we were both walking away from the car. He looked back at the bonnet and at the ridiculous metal sculpture that adorned it. He walked back to straighten it. He said, ''If they're bloody watchin' me, they'll be dyin' to get out 'ere to crunch it all up again....they'll be thinkin'...we'll get 'im.''. Then, he came to walk away, but he didn't get far. He said, ''Sod 'em!'' and rushed back to the car. Then, he said, ''See 'ow they like this!''. I watched as he proceeded to squash, bend and crumple his OWN arial into the most distorted and misshapen figure you could possibly imagine. ''There!'', he said, in a really proud voice, ''There's nuffin' they can do to make it any worse than it is already...I've got 'em! They think they're gonna get me, but they aint. I've got THEM!''.
Destroying your OWN car arial, just so that nobody else can. Pure madness, but I am so grateful for every minute of it he shared with me.
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