My Life as a Car.

At the start I was all over the place. Then I met this Spanner and he
said, Son I'm the nearest thing to a Dad you are ever going to have. Don't ask me about your Mother, the last I saw of
her she was heading off with a Mercedes Benz. I'd like you to know you come from a respectable family, your great,
great, great Grandfather was a Model T Ford, your forebears were brave and proud and we have pedigree! As I came off the production line I caught sight of
myself in a mirror and I suddenly felt better. I was one handsome car and my fear about going out into the world slipped
away. I was driven from the factory to a compound where we waited patiently for a ship to take us to Ireland. Arriving in
Ireland we were delivered to showrooms around the country.

After a few weeks in the showroom I began to believe all the things
the salesman was telling customers about me, my head really swelled and I had no time for the other cars. One day a man came in with his Wife and two kids and for some reason I knew this was it. After looking me over they took me for
a drive and the children told their Dad they loved me and he took me home.

All this happened ten years ago during the Boom Time. My new
family had a nice house and the Father had a good job. For the first few years I was well looked after and it was happy days.The only problems were the birds on the wire above where I was parked and the dog next door, one piddled on me
and the others hit the target nine times out of ten.

About six years later the Dad came out of work and gave me a
fierce kick in the tyre. Oh oh I said, something's up. He muttered to himself all the way home and the next day I found
out that he had lost his job. That's tough I thought but little did I know how it was going to affect me. Shortly after that the
decline started. My washes on Saturday morning's were over and my visits to the garage were few and far between.

I felt for the family, they were really struggling. The Father and
Mother had arguments in the car and the children started to lose their natural joy. My biggest problem was rust, in
particular rust under the floor mat on the passenger side. They didn't notice it until one of their friends nearly put his
foot through it. The Father, who didn't have the money to get a proper job done, cut up some timber and fitted it over
the hole. A few months later I developed a rattle in the driver's door. After putting up with it for days, he decided when
stopped at a red light to open the door and give it a good slam but the door fell off. The neighbours who saw the incident
thought, the door falling off was funny but what made it hilarious was the nonchalant way the Dad picked it up, threw it
into the back seat and drove off. The next day when the daughter was getting into the car her Aunt arrived, she asked
her niece "why do you always take books with you when you go out in the car?" So I'll have something to do when we break down she answered. I could have died with embarrassment!

A few weeks later the Family had to face the fact that they
were going to lose their home and it was decided that the Wife and kids would go to live with her parents. The Dad
would live with his sister while he looked for work.

On a Saturday morning we set out for the parents house, a journey
of about two hundred miles. I was not happy, my tyres were bald and my brakes were faulty. The Father was in great form
and even sang a few songs to shorten the the trip. I had noticed lately that he could be in good spirits for a few hours and
then get very depressed. He did not delay after dropping them off but his mood had changed. I got really worried when he
started crying. Eventually he pulled in to the side of the road and I had the feeling that something bad was going to happen.
Suddenly, I heard a train whistle in the distance and the Dad got me moving again. As we pulled out I saw a level crossing
down the road, the barriers were down. We raced towards it and I saw the train coming down the tracks. We crashed
through the barrier and he slammed on the brakes in an effort to stop in the middle of the tracks. Oh God, he wanted to
kill himself!

I'll never be sure if I had anything to do with it or maybe it was just
the bald tyres but we ended up two feet clear as the train thundered by. The Father put his head in his hands and crying
and shaking said, "what am I doing, what am I doing?" "I love my Wife and kids, please God help me. As my engine
died I thought back to what the Spanner had said. He was right, we do have "Pedigree"