Opposition is not necessarily enmity; it is merely misused and made an occasion for enmity.

By: Sigmund Freud

A new year, not a good start…

2007 for me, was not an amazing year to be frank. I had allot of ups and downs when it comes to jobs and such, and basically it could have gone better.

My hope is, that 2008 will go slightly better. However if it is anything like the start of my year, then I highly doubt it. I spent the first 2 hours of 2008 sitting in an AA recovery truck, with perhaps the most boring people in the world. Let me explain the story.

The clutch on my car, had been slipping for some considerable time. I drove down to Winchester, with my clutch surviving only on my bravado. The drive down was pleasant enough, with 60 all the way I was perfectly happy.

I will move the story on, to 4 days later when I was leaving Winchester, to attempt the nearly 350 mile journey back up to where I live in North Yorkshire. About 20 miles into my mammoth trip, the clutch was getting a little bad; so I decided to just dump the car in the nearest service station, and call the AA.

So I stopped at service station #1 and phoned the AA, and the sexy sounding voice on the other end of the telephone told me, that it shouldn’t be any more than 2 hours, and that she felt sorry for me having to be picked up on new years eve.

So feeling perfectly chirpy, I went off to the nearby Mc Donald’s (TM) got my self  a "Mac ‘n Cheese", and sat in my car comfortable in the knowledge that it would all be over soon… How wrong I was.

Truck #1

At precisely 9PM "The man in the van" (or more precisely a truck) turned up. If I am honest, my first impression of this man, was that he was a broad Yorkshire ass hole. But (and I don’t admit this willingly) I was wrong. He was not as I thought, a Yorkshire ass hole. He was from oxford.

So we loaded "le micra" onto the truck, and after stroking the bonnet affectionately for a while (That is no lie, I really do stroke parts of my car when it has broken down) I got into the truck only to be told that I would have to wait for 45 minutes for him to have a break.

Now here’s the thing ladies and gentlemen; spending 45 minutes in a small damp dark truck with a man who looks like he has committed a few axe murders just for the hell of it. Is not fun.

Once the glorious, and almost silent time was up, we set off and on went the radio. My God… I don’t know if any of you have ever heard of Sports FM, and count your blessings if you haven’t. It’s (and excuse my language) fucking awful.

Shortly after he turned the radio on, the driver (more commonly known as "axe monkey") informed me that "Sports FM" was (and this is a quote) "The number one radio station for truckers and long distance drivers." Basically my dear audience, it was relative to an audio bowel movement.

On went our journey steadily (and I mean steadily, 56 MPH is really as slow as you think it is) crunching up the miles in this truck. As time drew on, the silence felt uncomfortable so I asked him a few questions about the truck we were in. Here are a few of the facts he told me.

1. The truck had been in service for 7 years
2. The truck had done over 800,000 miles.
3. The truck smelled of piss (he didn’t tell me that, my nose did)
4. The truck was going to be decommissioned in 2 weeks.

After 107 miles of pure earth shattering boredom, we stopped at some random service station, where the driver informed me that I would have to change trucks and get another truck to take me the rest of the way, as he needed to get home.

Now generally I am a forgiving and polite person, so I accepted that it was my stupid fault for having to call the AA, so I might as well just grit my teeth and live with it.

Truck #2

The second trucker arrived quickly, and we loaded my micra off the first truck, and onto the second.

Now this is better I thought to myself, a trucker who doesn’t want to kill me! We set off on our merry way, and the difference from truck to truck was dramatic. I was now in a pristine truck brand new, with digital displays vibrating, air cushioned chairs with a 30 something year old driver who the only thing he would talk about was his kids. After maybe an hour of him nattering on about his dammed children, he put the radio on. Now seeing as there was an age difference of around 30 years between this trucker and the last, I stupidly assumed this his tastes were more in tune with my own. Oh how wrong I was.

I was stuck ladies and gentlemen, with nearly 3 hours of "Country and Western - YEEE HAWWWW (I swear on my grave that YEE HAWW was actually a name of one of the songs)" oh my God.

Now don’t get me wrong, there is noting seriously wrong with that style of music, I respect all music weather I like it or not. But country and western is going abit far. After each track that was played (and I swear they were all the same) the driver would jump up and down and clap wildly (at one point almost making him hit another driver) shouting at me asking if I agreed that the previous song was amazing.

Once again, not being a cock, I politely smiled and muttered that the music was ground breaking…

Not a short time after the start of our country and western marathon, this driver informed me that he could only take me another 30 miles, and that I would (once again) have to be picked up by a different driver, and taken the rest of the distance.

Slightly loosing my rag, I nodded and stared at my phone, on which I had just received a "Happy new year" message. Sighing I sat back and soaked up the miles.

Trucker #3

Now I must admit, this journey was uneventful. We listened to radio 1, drank red bull, talked about motorbikes & generally had a laugh for the last 50 or so miles of my journey

I finally got home at 2:30AM having set off from Winchester at 6PM. I had spent nearly £20 on red bull alone, £5 on cigarettes, £5 on tic-tacs & £10 on coffee.

So my dearest readers, if your clutch is playing up, for heavens sake don’t think "You can make it", because with the state of the AA drivers. You can’t.

Tom

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