What did we do before t’internet?

In your face, Garage Man

Following last weeks’ hilarious car crash, I found myself the owner a car with a great big fucking hole in it. Now I’m interested in doing almost anything I can to avoid paying the insurance excess and pumping up my premiums higher than they already are. It feels like Zurich are already taking 20-25% of everything I earn as it is and in my opinion the Swiss don’t need to be any richer than they are.

So my option is: replace the damn door.

I happened across a brilliant car parts website. I put in my registration and it was all, like: “dude – you are a down motherfuckah, pimpin’ and frontin’ in a grey, 2003 Toyota Corolla – now tell us what part you want“. So I told it what part I want and where I live and shit and this morning I’ve got emails from various suppliers and scrapyards with quotes for the part.

Think about how fucking ace that is for a second.

10 years ago, I’d have to gone to an oily garage where a guy carrying a rag would have taken one look at me and thought: “this guy knows fuck all about cars” and then done some calculations in his head about how much money he needed to go on a stag do in Nottingham that weekend and then charged me that, plus the cost of the door and his hourly rate. And I’d have known he was overcharging me but I’d have had no escape. And he’d have known that I’d have known and would have gone to the pub to have a chuckle at my fancy book larnin’.

Well laugh at it up, garage boy, because the internets are telling me what the part is worth. And how to fit the door myself  - although I still might get A Man to do that, because I’m likely to lose the spanner and then it’ll start to rain and I’ll somehow trap my fingers in the hinge and spend another embarrassing night in A&E.

And why did I crash? Because it was a hella busy week and there was no time to do anything except watch House on the Sky+ and change nappies and such, so we did our shopping from the sofa early on Sunday morning and Tesco were bringing it directly to my door.

And then I’ve got some friends with upcoming birthdays. One of them is a – *spit* – Villa fan. I looked on some website to find out what their heaviest ever defeat was (7-0 away to Man U on October 24th 1964) and found a program for that game on eBay. Only bidder. 75p plus a quid postage. Cheap, but I think you’ll agree it’s an ace present.

So the internets are ace. And we didn’t even mention porn.