Fobbed Off

Most places seem to have them nowadays but I just had to ask "Do you have Close Circuit Television monitoring your forecourt?".

The owner of the motor vehicle garage, through the partially opened sliding glass screen in his small office at the side of the workshop said that he did and gestured to something just out of my sight, presumably a monitor and recording machine.

If you are thinking about using a local garage for the first time for car servicing or repairs you may feel that this is as important a consideration as whether they are in a fair trade or good garage scheme or have not been too criticised on an on-line review site of which there are many for small independent businesses.

In my case the question was not part of the decision making process, in fact this was my third bit of patronage of the establishment in recent years.

The place is nestled on a bit of spare ground likely to have belonged at some time, if not still, to the Railways and the main vaulted roofed workshop is actually an infilled arch under an active rail freight line from the Port Docks westwards into the hinterland of Yorkshire and beyond. There are not many arches suitable for such use still around in this city, I can only think of one other location, coincidentally under a continuation of the same line but farther east.

The reason for my curiosity was borne not out of a concern to mitigate vandalism or deter inner city criminality which may or not involve my vehicle when on the premises but out of morbid embarrassment of what I had done on said premises just on the previous evening.

To explain;

I had dropped off my car on the previous morning, nice and early for its mandatory (being older than 3 years) annual MOT. The smallish forecourt can only take about half a dozen parked vehicles before the Proprietors have to use kerbside spaces in nearby streets.

My early-bird arrival ensured an easier drop-off and also my transition from motorist to cyclist which involved lugging my mountain bike out of the back of the car and putting on rain-gear and a rucksack with change of clothes and paperwork for my forthcoming day at the office.

Although before 8am the motor engineers were already grafting away and had been doing so from some unearthly hour given their good reputation which brought in a lot of local business for the six days a week that they were open.

I handed over the keys through the glass screen. They could have the car all day and I would try to bike back before they closed at 5.30pm.

If I was too late, which was probably guaranteed given the 8 mile ride from the office along riverbank path, through derelict docklands, the city centre, tracks along the course of discontinued railways and a mighty heap of broken glass and debris along the route I said that I would use my spare key and collect the car later on in the evening.

Fortunately my face was by now known by the owner and my offer, which I only realised later on for its foolishness, of letting them do the work and then driving off without payment seemed acceptable.

I suspect that it was not so much a matter of my honest appearance being my bond, as they say, but that he knew where I lived.

The day went broadly as planned apart from a soaking on the way to the office and the same prevailing conditions on the return after 5pm. Even the best knobbly bike tyres and a keen eye for that twinkling warning of broken shards of glass cannot always help in avoiding that ominous loss of pressure that means a dreaded puncture.

I was only about a half mile from the garage at the time of involuntary deflation but did not fancy hauling my damp self and muddy bike into a reasonably clean car and so made straight for home.

It was about three hours later that I found a spare car key, still on its pristine fob embossed with the original supplying dealer and putting on wet weather gear again I set off, this time on foot, for the garage.

It was a nasty night. Cold and drizzly but with a quick marching step I kept warm and covered the short distance rapidly.

The railway bridge that spanned the main road and overflew the workshop archway was just visible in the gloom.

My car was parked on the forecourt, bumper just inside the open plan pavement. In the rain, or as I call it, a Mexican Car wash, it looked pristine especially given  the passing glare of traffic on the busy main  road.

I stepped over the imaginary boundary line and made a 360 degree tour of the outside of the car.

I could not see an MOT Certificate on, for example, the drivers seat and so concluded that the garage owner was experienced enough not to give away anything without payment. Being self employed I could sympathise and respect  that but was disappointed that my demeanour was not, after all, as trustworthy as I thought.

I pulled out the spare key, or rather the remote control fob and pressed it.

Nothing happened.

There was no intermittent flash of orange from the indicators and hazards.

I pressed again.

Still nothing.

Perhaps the otherwise brand new fob needed activating, you know where there is a small tab to be extracted to activate the battery.

I could see nothing to pull.

It was a mystery.........or was it for the simple reason that it was the spare key for my wife's car of the same manufacturer?

By this time fatigue from the 16 mile round trip cycle plus that puncture and rain was making me a bit cranky.

I am not really sure in that state of mind but I believe that I may have danced around the parked car like a madman gesticulating with the key fob thing and expressing frustration at anything to do with machines, automation generally and specifically German car manufacturers.

All of this was in full sight of the road traffic and pedestrians , incidentally on one of the busiest routes to and from the city centre .Even on a dark,dank wednesday night there was a high level of footfalls , cars, buses, articulated supermarket supply trucks and vans.

My rant could have been for a mere few seconds or actually a bit longer before I realised the futility of it.

I slunk off into the night a bit embarrassed and not a little bit afraid of being scooped up by a Tactical Police Squad somewhere between the garage and my home. I kept to the shadows and used a few alleyway shortcuts, just in case any civic minded bus passenger or pedestrian had reported my evidently suspicious behaviour.

As for the likelihood of my Rumpelstiltskin type performance being captured on CCTV?

Well, the garage owner kept a dead pan face when I paid up the next morning but it could take say, ten years or so, for the footage to be aired on the likes of "You've been framed".

No worries there then.