In Ireland, we have The ‘NCT Test’. Yes that phrase is an example of Tautology (the things I do for clarity). This is a compulsory roadworthiness test for cars over 3 years old. It's a bit like the British MOT test or the American... I don't know, the American 'what' test?
Anyway... yet another embarrassing true story follows:
I have heard that certain families of crows have evolved so that they can use primitive tools such as stones to help break open their food. On that particular wing of the evolutionary scale they are a beak and several feathers above me. Any job which requires the use of tools or the interconnecting of parts will be guaranteed to cause me the greatest of difficulty.
It was therefore with a dull sense of trepidation that I approached the green letter which perched on my mat one bleak Tuesday morning. It was time for my car to be NCT tested to assess, and hopefully confirm, its continued roadworthiness. Doubtless the car would have to be tweaked and fiddled-with to help ease its passage. But ‘trepidation’ is too big a word to last very long. I resolved to take my standard approach to any problem requiring ingrained ‘handiness’ – I would simply pay somebody, who was up there with the crows, to do it for me.
So it was that I found myself, on the night before the test, sitting at home looking out at the rain pelt down upon my gleaming fully-serviced car, when it occurred to me to check the NCT appointment letter to make sure all my documentation was to hand – I’m passable at documentation.
The problem arose halfway down the letter where a note had mysteriously appeared to tell me that the hubcaps had to be removed from the wheels before arriving at the test centre. It was evident that nothing had thus far been removed from the wheels of my car and my appointment was for nine-fifteen the next day.
There was little choice. I would have to Do It Myself.
Some people – sportsmen and athletes perhaps – may enjoy sweating in the rain. But it was a relatively new experience for me and not one which I was enjoying at all.
Drenched to the sinew, at the centre of a virtual fairy fort of tools, devices and implements of destruction, I faced four of the most immovable spherical objects in the history of motorised transport. NCT failure hung over me like a steamy cloud. I needed help.
I phoned Dad, certifiably the handiest man in the world and living proof that physical dexterity can easily skip a generation.
“Get a chisel or a screwdriver” he bellowed from the midst of whatever handy task he was currently engaged in, “get the edge in under the rim then bang it hard until it comes off.”
Five minutes later things were largely as they were before except that I was now bleeding profusely from the fleshy part of my palm. I did what all non-handy people should always do… I gave up.
Next morning at work I told my work mate Anthony how I had skipped my test on account of the immovability of my hubcaps.
His reply was as gentle as it was disbelieving.
“You don’t have hubcaps,” he said, “you have alloy wheels.”
When I turned up for my rearranged appointment and told the NCT Man how my car had ‘Alloys’ which didn’t have to be prised off, I felt that for a fleeting moment I had peered in through the door of a club to which I would never, ever, belong.
This didn’t bother me too much.
What really bothered me was that, out there in the streaming rain, just before the blood started to flow in earnest, I had nearly gotten one of those beauties off.
