I'm not sure how old the car is but its steering wheel handle is peeling, the speed gauge is erratic, the driver's window will not close properly and the sensor is faulty.
All these concerns have been relayed to my brother but he just brushed them off. He has learnt to accept/embrace his car's eccentricities it seems.
When told of the speed gauge, he just gave it a whack and said, "Dia kena ketuk sikit", and sure enough, the then idle needle started to move.
He bypassed the window problem by having a Smart Tag (though he is still having problems when he has to collect/produce parking tickets).
And he just laughed off the sensor's constant beeping (it'll always beep when the car is in reverse gear even though there's no object obstructing the car).
We were always puzzled by Abafan's reluctance to buy a new car. He can afford it but he just doesn't want to.
The situation reminds me of Mma Ramotswe's attachment to her van. The passages below are taken from the book 'In The Company of Cheerful Ladies' by Alexander McCall Smith.
In Mma Ramotswe's case, her attachment to the tiny white van was more emotional than financial in origin. She had bought the tiny white van when she first came to live in Gaborone and it had served her loyally since that day. It was not a fast vehicle, nor a particularly comfortable one...And the engine had a tendency to go out of tune very shortly after Mr J. L. B. Matekoni had attended to it, which meant that the tiny white van would splutter and jerk from time to time. In Mma Ramotswe's view, though, these were small matters: as long as the tiny white van was capable of getting her around, and as long as it did not break down too often, she proposed holding on to it. She thought it as her friend, a staunch ally in this world, an ally to whom she owed a strong debt of loyalty.
After the van broke down in the middle of the night, when Mma Ramotswe was in the middle of nowhere, her husband subtly suggested to her to replace the van with a new one. She pondered on the suggestion and replied:
"I have had that van for a long time...I am very fond of it. They do not make vans like that anymore"
Mr J. L. B. Matekoni looked at her, and was suddenly filled with a great sense of pride. There were women who would be only too eager to get hold of a new van or car and who would willingly scrap a faithful vehicle for the sake of something flashier and smarter. It made him feel proud to know that Mma Ramotswe was not like that. Such a woman would never want to trade in an old and useless husband for a newer, smarter man. That was very reassuring.
I just love Alexander McCall Smith's novels because of passages like these. They are simple yet deceptively profound aren't they?
I agree with Craig Brown's review that "His novels are also extremely funny: I find it impossible to think about them without smiling"
Flea, from the Red Hot Chili Peppers even said that, "There are some great books that this guy called Alexander McCall Smith put out that take place in Botswana. They are really fun to read and make you feel like human beings can really have worthwhile lives. The first one is called 'The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency'. I highly recommend them if you like to be happy"
The conclusions?:
1) Read the books!
2) Be on the lookout for someone who's loyal to their automobile!
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