Now, I am not usually a person who makes a big todo about celebrating New Years Eve. Generally I stay at home and watch the fireworks on TV whilst enjoying a quiet glass of wine, or maybe three. This year, or was it last year now? My daughter happened to be in the same neighbourhood as we are both pet sitting within a few kilometers of each other. A local venue had a 90’s night scheduled and we had decided that we would attend.
Nothing remarkable about that, right?
Well, I was reckoning without the universe’s penchant for playing some of the most ironic practical jokes on me.
Here’s how it all played out. First, as is mandatory for any good prank, the setup.
On the afternoon of December 31st 2018, I had a couple of errands to run. I duly went to take care of these and tuned my phone to Spotify’s “Your heavy rotation” playlist, which plays whatever you’ve had on repeat recently.
On the way home, I found myself singing along to Sweet Transvestite.
Nice. Good song, nothing sinister about it. At all.
The time came to get ready to go. Hannah sent me a text saying she was on her way, and I prepared for a nice night out with good company and a few (very few for the designated driver) drinks.
As I was putting the finishing touches to my outfit, my phone rang. It was Hannah.
Hey, Mum, I’m stuck on the side of the road with a flat tyre!
No biggie in the usual sense of things, except that Hannah is driving a vehicle which belongs to her client. She doesn’t know if they have a membership in the auto club for roadside assistance, and she can’t get hold of them by phone to find out.
It’s going on sundown and the town we’re in is not really the kind of town a young woman wants to be stranded at the side of a back street alone. I tell her to sit tight, and I am on my way. By the time I arrive, Hannah has located the spare wheel, bolted to the underside of the SVU she is driving. She can’t find the jack, the wheel brace or anything else, and the owner is still not answering the phone.
It just so happens I am pet sitting for this client’s friend and I decide to call my client to see if she can offer any assistance. Meanwhile, Hannah is on her phone to the auto club in the hopes that if she gives the rego (license plate) to them, they can look it up and see if the owner is a member.
My client provides an alternate phone number. The auto club is a bust. They do, however suggest that they can come and change the wheel to the tune of $175. Hannah says she will try to contact the owners again and this time we reach them, using the number my
It works. The owners of the vehicle are with a different roadside assistance co through their insurance company.
By this time both Hannah and I are beginning to get hungry, Hannah can’t leave the vehicle, so I head off to the nearest fast food outlet to buy us dinner–I warn Hannah to get in the car and lock the doors.
Getting food takes me about 15 minutes and I return to find Hannah locked in the car, giving me that startled deer look while she speaks to a friend on her mobile phone.
Maternal instinct tells me there is something wrong with this picture. Hannah ends her call and rolls her window down.
Do you want to sit in here and eat, while I give you the details of my… encounter?
Good old maternal instinct. Never fails!
While I was–very briefly— away buying food, Hannah sat in the car with the doors locked as instructed. She noticed that another car pulled up across the road from her location.
“So, the passenger gets out, sets his phone to torch mode and starts scouting around under the bushes in the centre of the road. The car he got out of pulls into the slipway where I’m parked, facing my car… headlights in my face!
He comes over, walking around my car and shining the torch in the windows and basically casing it, until he gets to the driver’s window and I wave at him. Mum, this dude is obviously off his tree. She’s a nurse, she knows the signs. He’s backing up, looking at me. His mate in the car is driving towards me, then reversing, then driving towards me. I get on the phone to (friend).
Passenger gets back in his mate’s car and they take off.
We surmise that the guys thought that she was calling the cops. Good thinking, picking up the phone!
Finally, we see the roadside assistance car coming up the slipway towards us. Here’s where the cosmic humour comes in. Our assigned mechanic is devilishly handsome. I kid you not!
It’s not until he finishes changing the wheel and gets the car back on the road, that I twig. His car number contained the numerical sequence, 666! We’re on the road and halfway to the venue for the concert when I make 
the connection between that, and the song I was singing along to just a few hours earlier.
“So, you got caught with a flat?
Well, how ’bout that!
But babies, don’t you panic.
By the light of the night,
It’ll all be alright.
I’ll get you a satanic mechanic!”
It’s as though Trickster Loki, having played out his prank to completion, elbows me in the ribs and murmurs:
See what I did there?
Well played, Loki. Well played.
Continue reading “New Years Eve and the “Satanic” Mechanic” →
The above quote has resonated with me ever since the first time I saw Hamlet when I was about ten years old. Back then, I had no idea of who I was, and that has remained the status quo for much of my life. I’ve always tried to be what I thought everyone else expected me to be.
This blog has undergone some changes recently. A change of theme, a change of name, a change of direction in some ways. All of it reflecting the same changes taking place in the life of its author — me.
I obviously got it right with thinking I needed to eat more, as after just a week of doing that I stepped on the scale this morning to be greeted by a 2kg weight loss. This brings my weight down to 81.9kg (180lbs). That is lower than I have been since 2012! My BMI has come down from 31 to 30.8 as well.
Card 1 – The River Queen (upright/Ally)
Card 2 – Gaia’s Garden (Ally)
My Life 