Message to a visitor
March 20th, 2013
Thanks for your visit. I’m sorry you didn’t ring the doorbell and pause for a chat. I appreciate you were busy and pressed for time. And thanks for not waking me up. What was it, 2.30am? I would have been happy to brew a pot of tea for tea two of us, but, as I say, you were busy and you didn’t want to wake the neighbours.
Thanks for being so quiet when you broke the quarter-light to get access to my car. Did you notice how gently the engine fired up when you crossed the wires? None of us heard you at all! I realise you kept the revs down till you had at least got out of the car park, before you opened up and sped off to some other part of London. Well before I stepped out at 8.30am and saw what you’d done, my car was off the street in your garage, being sprayed a nice new colour (you don’t like blue-grey? matter of taste, I suppose) and fitted with a new set of plates.
I hate you.
Now, now, I must calm down. Did you know the United Nations has declared 20 March (yes, that’s today!) the International Day of Happiness? So while my first reaction to your visit is that you have caused me considerable inconvenience, have deprived me of a source of innocent pleasure, are going to cost me I-don’t-know-how-much in insurance as well as the cost of the car, and that you are a miserable, thoughtless, worthless criminal, I have to acknowledge that you have as much right to happiness as any other human, and if your way of claiming that is to take possession of a car which happens to belong to me, with no regard for the effect on me, well, who am I to complain?
You arsehole.
That may strike you as unduly hostile. It’s only a car, after all. And you weren’t to know that I’d spent £54 yesterday on a new spare tyre, after I’d got a puncture yesterday morning. Perhaps I should also thank you for relieving me of my car before I’d paid out for a new tax disk – you possibly hadn’t noticed the present one expires on 31 March.
In a league table of car theft worldwide, the UK appears in second place after the United States. You must be proud of helping this country keep up with the villainous Joneses, and I suppose, looking at it from a green standpoint, what I still think of as my car is probably being recycled as I write.
However philosophically I try to reflect on this episode, I cannot escape from the conclusion that the Chancellor has been wasting his time this afternoon, presenting his plans to make this country a better, richer, more successful place, while vermin like you are working to send us all down the toilet. (At the time of writing I don’t know what the Chancellor’s plans are, as I’ve spent the afternoon trying to repair the damage you’ve done to my life.)
You belong in a zoo. Come to think of it, I wouldn’t wish the likes of you on any zoo. You belong in prison.
By contrast, PC Ainsworth, of the Metropolitan Police, and her colleagues, who took my calls today, and Natalie Stringer, and her colleagues, at Aviva, who dealt with my claim, all made a great contribution to the International Day of Happiness. I thank them all.
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