The NCT, Magnets and Custard Creams

The National Car Test centre in Naas turned out to be an interesting place last week.  The men who check out the vehicles looked like they were each attempting a world record. There was a ridiculously tall mechanic, a ridiculously small mechanic and another with more tattoos and piercings than anyone on Miami Ink. They came and went as I sat in the waiting room. I was bringing the old jalopy in for another check over after it failed the initial test miserably. After a few minutes, a woman I know from town, Lynne, came in and sat beside me looking flustered. “Did your car fail?” I asked her. “No, I’m going through the menopause” she replied. Poor woman. She was hot and bothered before she had even got the results of the car test. 

She told me in a very loud whisper all about it. “I’ve been so moody” she began, looking left and right to make sure that the mechanics weren’t listening. “I was getting really hot and sweaty at night too” she continued,  "No sex drive at all!” she finished up. I opened a packet of custard creams that I happened to have in my bag and offered her one. They are my solution to most of the world's problems. Lynne shook her head. “No thanks. I have been putting on weight too which doesn’t help matters". I nodded sympathetically; I have eaten far too many biscuits this year. 

“Guess what I have done?” I couldn't begin to imagine. “I got a magnet,” she pointed downward. “I’m wearing a magnet in my knickers. What do you think of that?” I almost choked on my second biscuit. “In your knickers? Are you sure that is where it is supposed to go?” I asked, worried that she may not have read the small print right in her state of hormonal confusion. “Yes. Right here, in the front of my knickers. You wouldn’t know it was there at all would you? I can’t even feel it. It just sits there all day.” The very tall mechanic walked by carrying a bag of spanners. I winced expecting the whole lot suddenly shot out and stuck to the front of Linda's jeans. They didn't. 

"Guess who is sleeping at night? I’m still getting the night sweats but not half as bad and I lost a tiny bit of weight too - a nice bonus.” She told me that the magnet is the size of a jammy dodger biscuit and has been tested successfully all over the world. The experts don’t know exactly why it works for some women but it does. “It has changed my life” Lynne went on in the NCT waiting room. “And it is completely harmless. They use them on horses too” she continued. Horses in magnetic knickers? Now I was completely lost. 

So far I have not experienced any signs or symptoms of the menopause. I am one of those lucky women who has had the Mirena Coil in for years and benefited hugely from it. My own mother and millions like her had hysterectomies in their forties, but those days have gone now thanks to the coil and the magical way that it sorts out those fluctuating hormones. I was hoping that it would guide me through the menopause too. If it doesn’t, perhaps the magnet could be an option. Lynne certainly looked great. 

My car passed the NCT at the second time round. The most pierced mechanic gave me the certificate and I ran out of the building, heading out for a quick grocery shop before going home. I decided to invite magnetic Lynne round for coffee the following week. As I pushed my trolley around Dunnes I got to thinking about the magnet and potential hazards of wearing one in your underwear.  Could it set off the alarm at the airport, might it show up on the high tech body scanner machines that they have? Might they mistake the magnet as being a component of a bomb? Might you be accused of being a terrorist? 

I sent her a text a few days later.  "Coffee?” I asked. “Yes” she replied. Another from me: “Should I hide the cutlery? Wouldn’t want to trigger off the magnet.”  Another from her: “Don’t joke, just hung washing over the metal clothes airer - got totally stuck to it”

I suggest that anyone wearing such a magnet should treat themselves to a wooden airer. Safety first and all that.

CAR CRASH! At least no-one died (well actually, someone did...)

What the F*** were you thinking?” a man shouted at me last weekend, his face red with fury.

The traffic was at a virtual standstill and I had just realised that a funeral procession was taking place. “Who died?” is what I was thinking as I bumped into his car. I wanted to slide from my seat and curl up in a ball under the driver’s seat like a cat.

Instead, knowing that I had brought rush hour traffic to a complete full stop and was being watched by over twenty drivers, I held my head in my hands with the shame.

The windows were shut but I could hear him through them. “What the F*** were you THINKING?” he shouted again, pacing up and down.

I was thinking that the new family car might need a service. It sounds like a tractor and when you least expect it, does little bunny jumps. The bunny jumps are not good.

Registering that I had lost the power of speech temporarily, the man crouched down and began stroking his car’s bumper.

He came up to my window. I fumbled to find the newfangled button to make the window go down. Panicking and sensing his anger, I hit a button, any button. The rear window went down.

I hit another. This time the passenger seat window went down. Third time lucky, my own window finally lowered.

“Ok. I can’t see any damage” he said. I sighed with relief. I would not face the humiliation of having to fill out an insurance claim form.

The last time I had to sketch a lamppost with the rear of my car smashed into it.

“I’ll take your number, just in case I find any damage when i get home”.

With forty cars beeping their horns around me, the pressure was on. Try as I might, the numbers would not come into my head.

I fumbled around in my bag for my phone. I was like jelly, a nervous wreck. I needed to put this into perspective. Nobody had died. Well, actually somebody had died and was being buried. But I had not run anyone over in my newish bunny hopping car.

All I had to do now was remember my phone number, he would go away and we could all go home, have a cup of tea and watch Homes Under The Hammer.

But this was the ultimate memory game and like a contestant on The Cube, the tension was killing me.

“08…. 08, 08 something. Maybe 6?”

Where was Philip Schofield when I needed him? Instead half of Newbridge waited angrily in a mile long tailback behind me. I had attempted the Phone Number Recall Challenge and lost.

I needed to find my phone. Rummaging about in my bag, the darnn thing had vanished. I looked up at the driver. I think that his face was showing pity.

“Have you a pen?” he asked, softer now and less angry. I dipped into the handbag once more and pulled out a lipstick.

Then an eyeliner that I had last seen three years ago, then a questionnaire from a physiotherapist about exercise in young children, next a Samaritans information sheet and a handful of receipts from the petrol station, and finally a Lego Darth Vadar.

I opened the glove compartment. The obvious place for a pen.

I have a friend who runs her car like an office. She has make-up and hair accessories in one compartment and note pad, pens, tissues in another.

She always has a tasteful air freshener hanging from the mirror and there is not a scrap of dust to be seen anywhere in her car. She can pressed a button and magically talk to anyone through a special machine she has plugged into the dashboard.

She even has a designer perfume beside the handbrake that she uses as additional air freshener.

I have never looked beyond the front seat but I bet if I poked around in the back, I’d find fluffy slippers and a luxury towelling bathrobe.

To sit in her car is like spending time in a luxury hotel. You want to touch everything and take something home.

It’s not that I am jealous of her, but if she ever found herself in the same situation as me last week, she’d probably have pressed a button on her steering wheel and her insurance details, phone number and fingerprints would print out from a hidden gadget in the sun visor.

I opened my glove compartment, praying to the God of Pens.

Inside, an empty packet of Rhubarb and Custard hard boiled sweets, a melted bar of chocolate and a map of Snowdonia.

I was still unable to speak. the man leaned in.

“Just try and remember your phone number,” he said gently now.

This man would have made a great Samaritan. I should have given him the information sheet.

I pressed the palms of my hands either side of my head and focused on the Lego Darth Vader on my lap.

“086, 225?” I was almost there. I closed my eyes and used visualising techniques. I visualised that I was back on The Cube with my whole family sitting in a row cheering me on, clapping and whistling. I was almost there.

I may have had fifty cars beeping their horns, drivers shouting and waving their arms at me but with the good Samaritan beside me, I remembered the rest.

It was a small but important victory.

Despite what my overall general appearance may indicate, I still have it.

When push comes to shove, I still retain a few cells that work in my cranium, there really is sign of brain activity and there is hope for the future.

So what if I struggle with facial recognition, the time of day, what I went into a shop for, school meetings, the names of other people’s children, the names of my own children and birthdays.

I can still remember my mobile phone number. Just.