Draw an “L” on my forehead with sump oil

I’m not a car person. Husband isn’t either. We only have one and it doesn’t get much love. It’s 10 years old, dented, plastered with stickers and littered with old Diet Coke cans and crumbs and other crap. It stands out like dogs’ balls at school pick-up. We live in a shiny, new Volvo people-mover kind of suburb. I hadn’t really noticed until a Maroubra friend came to Sprog 1’s birthday party and flipped at the $600,0000+ worth of machinery lining the kerb. I recently took the car for its 150,000km service. When I picked it up, the mechanic was telling customers about the freaky 150,000km service he’d done. Just draw a big L on my forehead with sump oil. But I can live with the shame if he keeps the old girl going, ’cause we don’t have the funds for a new one. Husband needed the car to duck into the office yesterday. So I had to walk the Sprogs to school. It’s not a long journey, but it’s not short either. It involves a slight incline that makes me wheeze. I shouldered Sprog 2’s backpack, she struggled along with her heirloom brown Yamaha electric keyboard (lovingly preserved and passed down by her mother for lunchtime keyboard classes) and Sprog 1 whined that her ankle hurt. We eventually reached the top of the slight incline and met one of Sprog 2’s classmates, who was getting a mini cupcake from the patisserie. I felt a bit sorry for the classmate’s dad, despite the precedent he was setting with the baked goods. He was pushing a pram and looked shagged. So I offered to walk his daughter to school. You’d think he’d won the lottery. I humped off with the extra backpack and Sprog 2’s discarded electronic keyboard. Sprog 2 frolicked ahead with her classmate (both sporting rolled-down ankle socks, Sprog 2 is such a fashion sheep). As I staggered, I recalled the high-flying career I’d abandoned to become a pack horse. Sprog 1 gave an encore Hunchback of Notre Dame performance on the pedestrian crossing, then her ankle miraculously recovered. A few blocks later, I tottered through the school gates and ditched my load. There was a spring in my step as I walked home, alone, unencumbered and downhill all the way. I decided all that exertion cancelled out the fried rice discs and crab calorie explosion I was having at lunch. When Husband returned with the car, I cleared a spot on the passenger side and we were off. Rattle, shudder, rattle.

Are you a car person? If you could choose any model, what would it be? If someone insisted on giving me one, I think I’d go for a Mini (new millenium model). No stickers on the windows allowed. Not even those dinky My Family ones everyone’s loving/hating at the moment. Though I do have a weakness for the chook ones.