Bonzer Words!: My Embarrassing Moment
"One day after bumping through an area of road works on the way home from work my car started to make alarming noises...'' Colleen McMillan confesses to an occasion when her face was extremely red.
Colleen's writing appears in Bonzer! magazine. For more interesting articles click on http://www.bonzer.org.au
Before relating this embarrassing moment I feel I should point out I am a woman who knows nothing — and I mean nothing — about the internal workings of cars. I am, in fact, one of the last dinosaurs who doesn't even fill her own petrol tank. (I once read Real Women Don't Pump Gas ).
One day after bumping through an area of road works on the way home from work, my car started to make alarming noises. My theory being, ' if it goes keep going' I finally arrived at my local service station.
I told the proprietor that I was sure something was horribly wrong with my car. Being an obliging man he said he'd get his mechanic to look at it as soon as he finished the car on which he was working, and suggested perhaps I could do some shopping in the meantime.
I did, and returned half an hour later just as the proprietor and his mechanic were moving away from my car. They turned towards me and on seeing their sombre faces I exclaimed, "Is it something serious, something expensive?"
The proprietor nodded and the mechanic said, "Sorry, but it's going to cost a packet."
Then they looked at each other and 'cracked up'.
"What is it, what's wrong?" I interrupted.
"Your cigarette lighter," they chortled.
I must have looked mystified.
They continued, "When you drove over the rough road-works you shook your cigarette lighter loose and it rattled all the way here."
Was my face red? Weren't they honest men?
You can contact Colleen at anzac@primus.com.au
