Herself reminded me a day or two back of something she once did. Our elder daughter, a car smasher if there ever was one, used for a while a navy blue Golf. It ran all right but had been kerbed so often and so violently that its steel wheels were horribly battered. One had half its rim turned inside out, but oddly was still balanced well enough not to be noticed. It wasn't clean either, inside or out.
Herself borrowed the car once to collect a grandnipper from school. On emerging with the grandnipper she opened the Golf with the key and got in. Before she got the key into the ignition the perplexed owner of the car rushed up to ask her what she was doing. Only then did she notice that there were two navy blue Golfs parked nose to tail, and she'd got into the wrong one. The bloke was nice and laughed about it in rather a relieved way (you'd be completely round the bend to take Herself for a criminal of any sort).
I imagine the bloke's Golf would have been clean, with undamaged wheel rims and less rubbish in the interior, but she didn't notice anything like that until compelled to. Seems weird to me. But what seemed weird to her was that the key to our daughter's Golf opened another car. Struck her as sharp practice and corner-cutting by the VW locksmiths' department.
Should give a chuckle to Ted and Westpig surely?
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Reminds me of the story of the police banging on someone's door with the where is your car sir question. In my garage is the reply. Can we see it. To find a panda car in the garage. We found your same model car in the parking bay next to the one where we left our police car.
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It happened to me with a Polo. Sent out by a local garage with the key to collect a non-runner from a customers home, I saw a dark red Polo and assumed it was the car. The key opened it but wouldn't turn the ignition.
Only then did I notice another one parked across the road !
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My Mother tells a tale of a similar escapade in distant past - fifties
Dad's car was a black A30 or A35 as were many other cars at time. She got into car and sat in passenger seat for several minutes thinking where the hell's Ken when she realisd the maps on the dash were not theirs...
The right car was a few yard up the street.
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Locked my keys inside a MK3 Cortina, fortunately the guy I was with had his Escort keys on him!
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It has been known for the odd senior rozzer to nip down to the back yard from his office, hop in to a marked police car and fume when the key won't work and then realise he's got in to the wrong car...and there are witnesses....
.....allegedly.
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It's touching though really Wp, no loss of dignity, just pricking up their ears at the thought of a good car chase and timewarping back a couple of decades. To a time when collars could be felt without a quick trip to the radioactive hand cleaner just to be on the safe side.
To put it from another point of view, I don't really want the old bill putting their greasy hands on my collar. They may have been summoned urgently to arrest me while eating hamburgers in a layby for example. Just a thought.
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>>and then realise he's got in to the wrong car...
It is equally known for a certain expat to get into a car and wonder why there's no steering wheel every couple of months or so.
Allegedly.
Nobody ever seems to notice when one gets in the wrong side, yet it seems that every person within a mile is staring when one has to get back out and walk around the other side though.
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>> It is equally known for a certain expat to get into a car and wonder
>> why there's no steering wheel every couple of months or so.
Reminds me of the time the Xantia's exhaust failed in France. Once the part (rear box) was to hand the mecanicien walked over to my car in his overalls, polythene seat cover in hand. Went first to left front door, did a double take worthy of Buster Keaton, then walked to right side and drove car off to workshop.
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>>It is equally known for a certain expat to get into a car and wonder why there's no steering wheel every couple of months or so.
Happens every time we go abroad and hire a car. I'll let SWMBO (who wouldn't dream of driving on THAT side of the road) get in the LH side.
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>> It is equally known for a certain expat to get into a car and wonder
>> why there's no steering wheel every couple of months or so.
>>
>> Allegedly.
>>
Have you been spying on me?
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>>It has been known for the odd senior rozzer to nip down to the back yard from his office, hop in to a marked police car and fume when the key won't work and then realise he's got in to the wrong car...and there are witnesses....
At home this evening we were wondering about the origin of the word "rozzer". That led me to this fascinating Wiki page: tinyurl.com/9rvz6lt
Some days you learn a whole new language!
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>>Some days you learn a whole new language!
Just be grateful you've never been picked up by the fuzz (makes yer eyes water).
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>> Locked my keys inside a MK3 Cortina, fortunately the guy I was with had his
>> Escort keys on him!
>>
Fords were famous for it, local rumour around the Dagenham area was that Ford only had a certain number of key patterns plus the universal key of a flat bladed screwdriver....
I managed to open, and drive away, a Mk2 Cortina identical to mine from a packed car park at Rye House Speedway one Sunday afternoon, only realised it wasn't mine when I went to turn the radio on to discover that I'd got a radio cassette player that I hadn't got, if you know what I mean. Luckily I'd only driven about a 100 yards down the road.
The owner was nice as pie about it, the worst bit was the embarrassment and trying to get back into the car park against the flow of everyone else leaving.
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"Only then did she notice that there were two navy blue Golfs parked nose to tail, and she'd got into the wrong one."
There's a sitcom in there somewhere. I'll work on the script. Perhaps Delboy and Rodney?
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Mrs HM once came back to our car to find a brand new car cover, still in its box, on the rear parcel shelf; we hadn't had the car long so the interior was still uncluttered.
Asked me about it when she got home, I of course denied all knowledge of it. Someone else had obviously put it there; wifey did remember an identical i10 in the store car park and we came to the conclusion that the other driver must have bought it and put it into our car by mistake; it follows that the boot keys must have been pretty much identical. I don't think it would have happened had the other driver used the door a rather than the boot to access the car,as it has central locking.
I still have the car cover!
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While waiting for my car at the service desk another customer rang in. Although I could only hear one half of the conversation it was clear that he had his car in for collect and delivery service. The garage had duly returned a blue car to his offices car park and left keys with reception. Just wasn't the right blue car....The stupid service receptionist made no attempt to disguise the issue from we customers waiting, even repeating it to his colleague when he got off the phone. And this was a leading Honda dealer.
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In a similar vein stopped at services on the M1 some years ago for a call of nature. Came back out to the car followed by a young couple. He walked past me to get into an identical maroon Vectra 2 spaces past mine, the attractive young lady started getting in to mine before realising her error.
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...before realising her error.
You mean she walked past his Vectra too and got on the bus?
};---)
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The distaff side - Old Navy
