Forecourt farce

You cannot take your car to the carwash and stay dry.

It's a fact.

No matter how you best aim it it's either splash back from a wrongly angled wing mirror or tide marks up your trousers that have wicked every drop of moisture from the forecourt. I am 36 (perilously close to 37 - we'll address that issue later in the week) and yet I still am unable to get the water on the car and not on me. In every other aspect of my water handling life I can remain bone dry but the minute you hand me a lance and a brush I might as well just roll around in a puddle.

And here's this weekend's cruel twist.

Halfway through some serious pre-MOT soapy action the hose decided to part company with the lance so showering me in a stream of turtle wax enhanced soapy water. I wouldn't have minded so much if I hadn't just had a shower less than an hour earlier. Although to be fair my skin now has a wonderful shine and a hardened finish but it was the final carwash indignity.

And bless the man in the Nissan Micra who contained his laughter long enough to attempt to help me reconnect hose to lance (which is trickier that it sounds when on).

Anyway have decided to use bucket and sponge from now on. Not for my car - for me - before I drive to the carwash.

So here's the joke ...

An elephant was drinking out of a river one day, when he spotted a turtle asleep on a log. So, he ambled on over and kicked it clear across the river.

"What did you do that for?" asked a passing giraffe.

"Because I recognised it as the same turtle that took a nasty nip out of my trunk 53 years ago."

"Wow, what a memory." commented the giraffe.

"Yes." says the elephant. "Turtle recall."
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Jon Cuthill is a presenter on BBC Radio Solent. You can listen to him every weekday from 9am-12.30pm, or listen again online at his website.