Melissa Kite
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I’d only been driving it for a few days when a message flashed up on the dashboard and it started to complain about needing a service. I rang the dealership and they reassured me that it had just had one. ‘But it’s demanding another one,’ I said. ‘Are you sure it had a proper one?’ They were quite sure. It had a really big, proper service. Ignore it, was the advice of the dealership owner. It will stop going on about it after a while. And indeed after a week or so the message did stop flashing.
A few weeks after that, the hazard light went on again and it started to complain that the brake fluid was low.
I had a male friend open the bonnet and top it up. It had only dropped a tiny little bit. ‘Modern cars are very sensitive,’ my friend explained. You’re telling me. It will be demanding white lilies and Kabbalah water next. Sure enough, a few days later, the hazard light went on again. ‘What now?’ I screeched. ‘You can’t need anything else.’
But it did. ‘Bulb failure: Parking light.’ I decided not to give in. Who needs a parking light? I will brazen this one out, I thought.
How wrong I was. The Volvo did not just require a new parking light, it had also set its heart on a new parking light, so much so, in fact, that over the next few days the warning message flashed ever faster like a strobe light on the dashboard until I couldn’t take my eyes of it and swerved across two lanes nearly having an accident.
Then it stepped up its campaign and started alternating the bulb warning with a series of other messages while I was driving from Surrey to south London. I couldn’t read them, because I was trying not to jack-knife across the carriageway but I think, when you put all the messages together, it said something like this:
‘Your parking light still hasn’t been fixed, Melissa. You didn’t bother to go to Halfords when I first warned you about it, did you? So now I’m going to flash even faster. What’s the matter? Can’t afford a parking light bulb? Times that hard? Or are you just being lazy? It’s not that you’re trying to defy me, is it, Melissa? Because I wouldn’t like that. It would make me sad. And angry. You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry. When I’m angry I become forgetful. I could shut off the entire engine when you’re on the A3. Just like that. Oh, whoops, I can’t concentrate on powering the car, because I’m so angry about you ignoring me. Do you want that to happen, Melissa?’
It flashed and flashed, faster and faster until I couldn’t stand it any longer.
‘Alright, I’ll go to Halfords. Wait, better still, I’ll take you back to the garage where I bought you. Tomorrow morning, first thing.’
‘I don’t know. You’ve made promises before. And I hate it when you break your promises…’
‘No, please, I’ve learned my lesson, honestly.’
‘Good. And I want Kabbalah water in the screen wash.’
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