Son Number One, you know, the dark-haired one (I forget his name), asked if he could borrow my car when he heard I’d started working from home.
‘Of course,’ I said. ‘You going to be long?’
‘Thanks dad,’ he replied … and I didn’t see my car for another two years!
Bradley (I knew it would come back to me) returned home a couple of weeks ago and said, if I needed, I could borrow ‘his’ car while he went on holiday. (That’s the arrangement we have. When he needs to drive to work or university, it’s his car. When there’s an MOT or costly repair needed, it’s mine. It was ever thus). He dumped the keys at my flat and disappeared with a ‘Oh, and I didn’t have time to get it washed and I meant to Hoover the inside. Sorry.’
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When he said he didn’t have time to get it washed, I assumed he meant that week. Turns out he didn’t have time to get it washed in the two years since he whisked it away.
That’s not to say it’s not an environmentally-friendly car. The thick layer of moss cocooning my Corsa ensures the majority of heat is retained within the vehicle.
I didn’t so much need a wet sponge as a shovel to clean it.
Seriously, the car had its own ecosystem. I had to use a plastic knife to gouge out the soil embedded in every nook and cranny. It didn’t need a wax and polish, it needed weeding!
Inside was even more of an eye-opener.
Here’s me thinking he was spending his summer flipping burgers to make ends meet when he's clearly been recruited by the CIA to stake-out lawbreakers.
I don’t know who he’s been spying on, but it must have been a big job. Probably the head of an international drug cartel. Looked like he must have been holed up for months. My (his?) car was knee-deep in takeaway boxes, coffee cups, and sweet wrappers. In the back seat I found underwear, an umbrella and a pair of shin pads! (I didn’t ask. If there’d been a body, police would be going down the ‘sex game gone wrong’ route).
It took me three hours to clean. I didn’t go into the boot. Not worth the risk. Disturbing foxes in their dens can be dangerous...