O
n Wednesday night I had a thing to go
to and then I had a thing to deliver and
then a 15-year-old thing to pick up from
a sports field 40 minutes away from
home. A fairly standard evening for a
man whose second job is more unpaid
Kent cabbie than British Virgin Islands tax adviser.
If everything had gone to plan I’d have managed the
things with ease, but everything didn’t go to plan and
because of that I have found the secret to happiness.
That incredible night the trains were up the spout.
Badly. The kind where the departures board is full of
delayed services from three days ago. The kind where
you run from platform to platform chasing trains the
Tannoy guy has only hallucinated. The kind where you
eventually find a real train but it’s stopping everywhere
and the only space left to stand is in the toilet bowl.
Late, then, for the things, but that was OK. If I ran
the mile from the train to the car and treated the rest
of the night like a thing triathlon, it would probably
be fine. But then I ran to the car and clicked the fob
I had already got ready — expertly at a canter —
and nothing happened and my hopes and
administrative dreams died right there.
Why was the car not opening? I clicked and
clicked again. And again. Nothing. I must have left
the lights on. Or the fob must have died. Click.
Nothing. Time to open the car manually. I’d done
this once before but at home and in daylight. There’s
a metal key inside the fob but I couldn’t remember
how to get it out. After some fiddling and then some
googling in the dark and in the rain, I found a tiny
button and got the key out. Then I found a very
well hidden keyhole in the door handle and then
I turned the key as if it was the 1990s. I loved the
1990s. A time before fobs.
But I turned and nothing happened. I turned harder.
I could feel the metal key bending a bit. A snapped keywould probably be worse than a dead battery so I
watched another video and tried to get into the boot.
Maybe I could open it and get the jump leads and
flag someone down and get the battery going and
still do all the things. Or maybe I could climb in,
close the lid behind me and wait for someone else
to do all the things.
No joy. Not yet. A couple walk past and look at me as
if I’m a car thief. I smile and return to the driver door.
“Dead battery,” I say, trying to look innocent. And
when they’ve gone I try the other door and I bend the
key a bit more. The desperation phase. Maybe I should
just run back to the station, find an actual taxi and buy a
new car tomorrow? I phone Harriet and she asks where
the jump leads are and I explain they’re locked in the
dead car. What about all the things, she asks. I know,
I reply. Then I phone roadside assistance and they are
very, very busy. Then I look through the window and
notice a sat nav squeegeed onto my car’s windscreen.
Then I think that’s strange because I don’t have a sat
nav squeegeed onto my car’s windscreen. Then I think
this is not my car.
The first reaction is shock. The couple were right.
I am a car thief. I back away quickly and look around
for an angry owner or the police. That’s when I
notice, past one massive, massively unhelpful 4x4,
another obscure, obsolete Volvo in the gloom.
Same colour. Same age. I can’t remember the last
time I saw another one like it but there it is. I click
the fob and its lights flash.
I check no one is watching, move sheepishly two
cars up the street, open the door and get in. And
suddenly I’m the guy on Beadle’s About (the other
great thing about the 1990s) who just found out
his van hasn’t actually been tipped into the harbour
by a crane. Total relief. Pure, unadulterated happiness.
This Friday is Black Friday, a day (or a week or, let’s be
honest, a whole damn month) when the internet beats
us into submission and we try to get our dopamine hit
from slightly discounted saucepans and power tools.
I’ve tried it in the past and it doesn’t work. What does
work is finding out you’ve been trying to open the
wrong car in the rain for half an hour. Finding out
disaster has been averted. It’s free, it’s less risky than
other ways to get a dopamine hit and I recommend
it whole-heartedly n
CHARLIE CLIFT FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES MAGAZINE @mattrudd
MATT RUDD
A couple walk past and
look at me as if I’m a thief.
“Dead battery,” I say,
trying to look innocent
Why won’t my !@!%#
key fob let me into my car?
I now know the answer — and it has given me the dopamine hit of the year
The Sunday Times Magazine • 5