Tony Deyal"YOUR BATTERY overcharging," the young man said, shaking his head diagnostically. Well doctors are doing it, lawyers are doing it, plumbers, carpenters and even car mechanics are doing it, so why not batteries? I thought realistically. "So can you repair it and what will it cost?" I asked speculatively. "Our auto-electrical technician is not here at the moment," he said negatively but then, perhaps taking a cue from the battery, he suggested positively, "There is a place you could go to." I knew instantly to which destination he referred. It was the bank.
It was not my best morning. In spite of having a lot planned for the day, I had made myself a cup of camomile tea, a concoction that reputedly allows you to better digest your meals and melancholies, when I tripped over my shoes while singing, a la Neil Diamond, and at the top of my voice, "Sweet camomile, the good times never seemed so good." Perhaps it was in answer to the prayers of my children and neighbours, long subject to such improvisations and annoyances, that such calamity of that magnitude should befall me and my camomile. Or perhaps it was the curse of he-who should-remain-nameless, since the tea spilled over my brand new Harry Potter book which was acquired at some considerable cost, and I . I told my wife, Indranie, when asked for an explanation, that it was all wizardry. However, no magic wand will remove traces of tea or provide the sympathy that I so badly needed. I admit to being accident-prone, but I do not relish being prone after the accident.
OUT OF TIME
Then I threw down my watch and it fragmented, the back coming out and the hands totally disembodied. I was late and fast running out of time since one of my other watches was broken and no replacement could be found. My wife advised that I should stay home, take refuge in the bedroom, and sleep for the day instead of venturing out to encourage even more calamities. I put on a brave face like Harry Potter, hitched up my spectacles, and drove away in a cloud of optimism.
Which did not last as long as a Panday promise. Within seconds a little battery shaped light, complete with plus and minus sign, appeared on my dashboard and refused to disappear in spite of my shouted "Abracadabra" and other spells and incantations. I eventually found myself in a garage where the sentence was pronounced on my battery. However, it was not the battery's fault (and here I must tender apologies for the false charge) but something called an "alternator". It seemed that I had no alternative but to replace the alternator.
Since it is not a native product but a foreign one, the costs are substantially high as are all other car parts. It is my contention that if you tried to build a car out of car parts, the cost would be about twenty times the cost of the pre-assembled product. Maddeningly, those people who import cars do not necessarily import parts and there is no legal compulsion for them to keep in stock any parts for the vehicles.
Such was the case with mine. The agents had no alternator or alternatives and I would either have to continue with an overcharged battery or park up the car until such time as an alternator could be imported, go through the laborious customs procedure and then reach the agent who would sell it to me at a vastly inflated cost provided that in the meantime no corporate customer or good friend had developed a similar problem and needed an alternator. In which case, back to square one or minus scratch.
Fortunately I found someone who could help. "Your battery overcharging," he said impassively as he fiddled with alligator clips, leads and an instrument with a nervous needle that jumped up and down like my children in the back seat on the way to the Zoo, a destination that I threaten is a one-way trip. An alternate alternator was prescribed. Fortunately, there was one in stock that would suffice and for which the garage stocked spares. It would cost about US$130 for a used alternator whereas the offending part in the original distributor, were it available, would have cost much more, or so my friend, who works for the agency, said.
AN ALTERNATIVE AT LAST
With no watch but with time hanging heavily on my hands, I waited through rain and shine for the alternator to be put together and installed. As I sat on a hard, wooden bench, I could not help laughing at what my day had so far brought. There are people familiar with God's will who could probably give me some greater insight into His rationale for subjecting me to such stress. Anglican Archbishop Bess of Trinidad, for instance, whose pronouncements on the Bible and homosexuality are based on the premise that God knows Bess, would have a ready explanation.
Perhaps, ac/dc is an undercurrent and one should not go with the flow, he would say acidly, distilling the wisdom of the ages. George Otis Jr., an American Christian Researcher, who last year told sinful Jamaicans that God is not even stopping long enough to give them an autograph, would probably use his familiarity with the Deity to deny me even his initials. Me, I just figured that enough was enough and God would ease up on me.
Then when I parked to drop something off at a bank, I had to run outside to keep the wrecker from towing away my van, alternator and all. "Don't get a heart-attack," said the wrecker-man and the police-man simultaneously as I ran to my van's rescue. At least He didn't let them take the van or cut off my blood flow, I thought, as having arrived home safely, I reflected on my day's blessings. It was then that I spilled the soft-drink I was having all over the chair and the floor.
Tony Deyal was last seen repeating that if you want God to howl with laughter, you must tell him your plans.
