I thought it was time that I took a break from being the object of ridicule for awhile.
Yes I did receive a couple of emails saying ‘ohhh do tell the story of the heated handle bar grips’ but that was some fourteen years ago and it will take a little time for me to recall the details exactly.
In the meantime I thought to recount the unfortunate tale that befell a friend of mine who shall, in the interest of discretion remain nameless.
O.k – So let me set the scene, because that for me is the true essence of this particular fail/tale.
My friend; lets call him, “friend X” just to make things easy, had lived all of his life, along with myself and most of our other mutual friends in the area commonly referred to as West Auckland.
As with any area in which you spend most of your life it becomes, ‘home’ with most of the downsides minimized so that you become reasonably attached, in a territorial kind of way regardless.
Not so for friend X.
He had decided that he was tired of the loutishness and ‘hoonism’ that in my opinion adds a degree of charm and interest to the area. And so he decided to make the move upwards to the north of Auckland and so be free of cars doing burnouts in the middle of his street in the dead of the night or waking up to find somebody had lost control of their vehicle in the early hours and taken out the better part of the front fence and accompanying shrubberies.
Fair enough I suppose. But somewhere in the back of my mind a little voice kept saying “good one, I wonder how your new neighbors are going to feel about you moving in and completely lowering the tone”.
Anyway; a week after moving in and friend X is quick to extol upon us the virtues of living in his more up market place of residence. “No more loud cars, reckless drivers, roaming dogs etc, etc blah, blah, blah" - whatever!
Now friend X was the owner of several vehicles one of which was a rather grumpy looking Range Rover powered by a 400cu Chevy big block which had been ‘uglied’ up by having a Series 2 Land Rover body perched upon it and a roll cage thrown in for good measure. He was also a tradesman and had a long wheelbase van for use in the day to day running of his business.
One evening in that first week of moving in, he returned home from work in the dim light of early dusk and still being a little inexperienced with the steep driveway of the new house, misjudged the width of the driveway and ended up with two wheels off the edge.
Given the speed of the descending darkness he made the decision to leave the van where it was until the morning when he could, with some assistance from his housemates haul the vehicle back onto the driveway proper.
He awoke reasonably late in the morning to find that while he had slept his housemates who needed to be at work much earlier that same morning - had left. Not wishing to face his ferocious waking temper (or breath) they had chosen to let him sleep on. The grounds for this decision being fairly based upon the premise that he knew they had to leave early and if he required assistance he would ensure he was ready when they were.
By keeping to the very far left of the driveway they had squeezed past his trapped vehicle and merrily headed off to their respective workplaces.
Now, being a reasonably practical sort of chap, friend x took it upon himself to recover from this predicament unassisted.
He went about it thus: He backed the Rangie down the driveway from the house and parked it within towing rope distance from the front of the work van. He then attached a stout 4WD recovery strap to the back of the Rangie and the front of the van.
I know what your thinking – how does one person tow two vehicles? Put that to one side for a moment because that is really only half of the picture – we’ll come back to that.
Let me attempt to paint you a picture of this driveway.
Not only is it very steep but at the bottom of it and running perfectly perpendicular to it was a fairly busy road. This road merely divided the steep hill that friend x’s house was situated on the top half of. Directly across this road was another driveway which was equally steep but of course was headed down the hill. At the bottom of that driveway was what you would call “the neighbor across the roads” house. Hopefully you get the picture – steep hill, road running across it, some houses up from the road, some houses down from the road.
Now where was I... Ah yes – so how does one person tow two vehicles? Or more appropriately, why would one person want to tow two vehicles on their own given the circumstance!
Well lets face it we’re men and we may all be brave under pressure but you would be foolish to say we were the smartest of the sexes... Enough said.
So friend x piles himself into the four wheel drive from hell and figures that just a gentle yank ought to do it as he has no intention of attempting to pull the van anyfurther than simply back on to the concrete.
Well this proves to be a little tougher than at first expected due to the rut the vans spinning tires have created multiplied by the thickness of the driveway concrete.
Thus begins the real tale of woe.
Having unsuccessfully given the van several light tugs (if such a thing is really possible with 400cubes and a low range gearbox suited for climbing vertical glaciers) friend x not known for his tireless patience makes the foolhardy decision to bury the go pedal.
Yay! - The van pops magically out of its ruts, one more small yank and she will be on the driveway completely.
Funny isn’t it, how disaster always strikes when success is so close you can taste it.
With a sickening lurch the Rangie leapt forward just as friend x had suspected it would when the van finally rolled up on to the driveway – but no.
The van had in actuality made it up on to the driveway but at almost the precise same moment the towing rope came undone at the van end!
Unlike most stories where in situations like this, time seems to slow and everything else slows with it, this was not so for the van and its phantom driver.
Being that it was rolling backwards down a very steep driveway and the steering wheels were at the back it simply followed the contours of the driveway picking up speed at an altogether alarming rate.
By the time friend x had clambered from the Rangie and begun to run frantically after the fast retreating van it had accelerated to a frightening 50 – 60km/h. Not daunted by the fast approaching end of the driveway the van appeared to gather even greater speed before launching itself out of the driveway and tearing blindly across the road where as fate would have it, the neighbor’s driveway lay in wait with welcoming arms.
A horrified friend x had sprinted to the bottom of his driveway and across the street in time to see the accursed van gather ever more speed on the neighbors driveway only an instant before burying itself with a horrendous smashing of glass, crashing and tearing noise, half of it’s own length deep into the neighbors house.
As he stood there wringing his hands in woe and wondering which emergency service to call first two things happened.
One was the recalling of a vague memory to do with the parking brake in the Rangie, the second was a strange rattling noise coming from his driveway.
And so, just when friend x thought things could hardly get worse, they did.
Hello! – here comes the fucking Rangie.
In his haste to abandon the 4WD upon seeing the van making an escape from the towing rope friend x had failed to adequately engage the parking brake and now the 4WD too was hurtling down the driveway apparently intent on rejoining its escaped companion.
In a frustratingly inconvenient display of arrogance time now choose this exact moment to slow down. And with agonizing clarity and a painful feeling of impending doom friend x watch the behemoth of a 4WD sail across the road, down the neighbors driveway to plant itself with a sickening crunch two feet deep into the only remaining undamaged panels and windows in the front of the luckless van. This also had the undesirable effect of pushing the van the rest of the way into the bedroom on suite that had taken the brunt of its impact, ripping the bathroom vanity from the wall, rupturing the associated hot and cold water pipes from the taps to send showers of water over the whole rotten mess.
I suppose if there can be an upside it would have to be that through the whole debacle nobody was injured in the least, so long as injured pride is not taken into the equation.
But what will forever remain ingrained in my memory are my friend’s initial reasons to move out of west
Currently listening to:
Pitbull – The Boatlift
SuperGroove - Postage
Ahhh memories!
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