Felicity Banks

Yesterday I went to our mechanic to arrange a time for my partner’s car to FINALLY get fixed (it’s been a saga going on for months – every time we take it in for one thing, they find another thing wrong). It’s a service station where I often get petrol, so people know me and both our cars very well – they’ll actually ask how one car or another is running when I buy petrol.

The main mechanic was serving someone when I arrived, so another one wrote down the appointment for me. “And what type of car is it?” he said.

And I froze. Just couldn’t remember. Was it a Mazda – or was that mine? What on earth was MY car (other than off-white. . .)?

“It’s a mazda wagon,” I said at last. “At least, I THINK it’s a mazda. Definitely a wagon. . . definitely. . .”

I wandered off with, as always, images of praire settler wagons in my head. Does anyone else think it’s wrong to call a car a wagon?

Anyway. . .

That wasn’t as bad as when I foolishly went shopping with my husband in an unfamiliar shopping centre. We only had a few things to buy – bread, milk, fruit, maybe a can of tuna or something. So we walked along the aisles together, looking at the signs so we knew where to go. I spotted a whole aisle for alcohol (unusual, since alcohol normally gets its own little section in a corner somewhere) and said, “Mmmm. . . . booooooze.”

My partner didn’t say anything, but what can one say to that? So I just kept walking, chatting away happily. He still didn’t reply, so I stopped and turned around to ask him a question.

Naturally, my husband had wandered off long ago and was nowhere to be seen. Instead, I faced a security guard wearing that, “Yes, I AM watching you” face.

At which point I stopped talking and went to find my straying husband.

Me? Crazy? My friend Bobby the Invisible Bear says I’m just fine.