Trying it on

I've been getting on with the rotted Fox the past few days, but with it getting dark at lunchtime and me getting sick of working with frost forming on my extremities, it's been a bit slow. The interior is now completely out, and I've advertised all of it as free to a good home - or any home, frankly - and if nobody takes it, it'll be going to the tip at the weekend. That'll make it twice in a fortnight I've been to the tip ... must be some kind of record. Shame they don't offer Nectar points. Mind you, during the last visit I ran in to a right jobsworthy little bum-pucker. I was throwing out a Fox notch rear screen - another part I'd advertised as free to collector with no takers. I was walking up the ramp to the skip marked 'Small and bagged waste' when he yells "You can't put that in there!" Why not, where should it go? "It's got to go in 'Large and bulky waste'." But it's a windscreen. "No, that's large and bulky waste." Okay, so I walk two skips along and throw it in the almost empty 'Large and bulky waste' skip. SMASH! Oh, yes, I see what you mean, those 16,000 glass fragments certainly are large and bulky. You really are the intellectual power of Stephen Hawking in a hi-vis tabard, aren't you? Twat.

So, back at the ranch, working by halogen light, I got on with the job in hand. Man, this thing is really rotten. It's been left outside for the thick end of two decades, parked up against a hedge, and the hedge-side is just crusty rot, the sort where, in places, the steel has rotted to dust and left the paintwork intact. Everything you touch just collapses helplessly - it's like playing in the Premiership. for instance, this (above) is the top of the C-pillar. Remove the piece of plastic trim, however, and you find this:

All that guff just disintegrated under the sheer force of me looking at it. I thought this might be a good opportunity to polish up some of those helplessly trite phrases that chancers trot out when they're trying to convince you that the hopeless old shed they're trying to sell you is, in fact, an investment-grade classic in the making. How about: "Worth a lot of money when done up."

"99% done, only needs a weekend's work for MoT"

"MoT expired in 1990, but it's only done 4 miles since so it should fly through another one."

"Just needs welding for MoT."
"Ideal project."
"Valuable registration."
And my favourite one, "Rust free". Note the punctuation. If it said "Rust-free" this would imply that the vehicle was not suffering from any corrosion. "Rust free" sounds like a special offer - "Buy the car, get the rust free! While stocks last."
Sadly, my stocks of rust show no signs of diminishing at any point any time soon.

Eugene