Kevin Page: Parking up the wrong street

Kevin Page.

Many years ago, I was walking down the road in pouring rain when a car pulled up alongside.

Happy to be offered any opportunity to keep dry I didn't even look to see which of my kind friends was behind the wheel and simply yanked the passenger door open and dived inside.

The look of surprise on the driver's face was matched, a few seconds later, by his actual target - another walker who had been trudging along 10 yards behind me - and who was now sitting there also wondering who this unknown interloper was.

"What's he doing?" he said to the totally confused driver, motioning in my direction.

My gaffe was by now apparent but, thankfully, they took pity on me and ferried me off in the general direction of a dry spot. I presume they laughed all the way home.

Now I'm sure others among us have encountered similar tales. I mean who hasn't responded to a wave, frantically trying to remember who the approaching person is, only to discover they'd been waving at a person behind you? I bet most of us have done something like that.

I've managed to go one better, though.

The Boomerang Child was, once again, leaving home. And boxes of, er, stuff needed shifting. I needed a trailer. But I also needed a car with a towbar.

Who hasn't responded to a wave, only to discover they'd been waving at a person behind you?

Luckily a mate had the required vehicle. An old white Mazda "dunger" which, he said, had been giving him a bit of motor trouble recently but should be okay.

It was parked out the back of his work in the car park. Unlocked as usual. He figured if anybody stole it he wouldn't mind. And I could have it all day.

And so I set about the shift with gusto. I may have even whistled at thoughts of my spare room becoming, well, spare again. I even thought about putting the old weight bench back up. Start working out, get rippling abs etc etc.

But I digress. As I do. And did, when I didn't put the bench back up.
Anyway.

I spent the day carting stuff all over town. The old dunger stretched its legs admirably ... until its mechanical woes came back to haunt it and it broke down. Three hundred metres from the garage I was returning the trailer to. I had no option but to unhook the high-sided beast and push it down the road back to its home.

Now pushing a trailer across the lawn or up the drive is do-able. Three hundred metres along a busy road is both exhausting and dangerous. Needless to say, when my $25 hire deposit was returned it was quickly spent on liquid refreshment. And a pie. There was one left. It called out to me. Enough said.

So then I trudged all the way back to town where I broke the news of the breakdown to my mate and offered to drive him out to view his dead dunger.

He was somewhat dejected as we walked to the car park out the back of his work where my car was now occupying the spot where his old white Mazda had sat some five hours earlier.

But his mood lifted as he stopped in his tracks, a broad grin developing with the realisation of what had happened.

"Where did you pick the car up from?" he asked.

"Right here, where mine is," I said. "I drove it out and then pinched your car park."
"I don't think so," he said, almost doubling up with laughter as he pointed to an old white Mazda dunger two spaces along.

"That's my car there".