My parents recently bought a new car, a Toyota somethingorother. It's green. The number plate includes the letters 'zwa' which is how I recognise it: because whassisname from Smashing Pumpkins has a new band called Zwan.
At 5.30am, from the depths of peaceful dreams about getting text messages via my tray whilst eating at a university refrectory, (no, I don't know either), I was awoken by the sound of a car horn going off. You know how these car alarms are – once they're going they're a bugger to turn off.
My dad rushed downstairs in his pjs, and spent ages standing in the freezing cold trying to turn the car alarm off. Nothing seemed to work. He pressed the little 'unlock' and 'lock' buttons repeatedly, but nothing seemed to stop the damn noise.
It was piercing by now. Our neighbour at No. 2 had come out and was trying to turn off his car alarm too. Up the road, the people from No. 4 and No. 5 were trying to turn off their car alarm. None of this was having any effect on the horrendous howling. No amount of button pushing or confused barefoot kicking of the car wheels made any difference at all.
Eventually, our neighbour from No. 2 realised that it was, in fact, not his Shogun, nor my parents' Toyota, but the forklift truck that he's had stashed across the road under the trees, (virtually in the trees, actually), for the last month. The water had got into the electrics and, well, there's nothing like a short to set the horn off. Eventually, he got himself a pair of wire cutters and snipped the relevant wires.
Silence.
Bliss.
It's quite amazing how many people have never heard their car alarm go off before, and have absolutely no idea what it sounds like, but who are willing to stand about in the freezing cold in little more than their underwear trying desperately to make… the… damn… noise… shut… the… fuck… up!
Other than the noise that morning, don't you agree that the early morning is the best part of the day. So quiet and peaceful.
One, doesn't go around testing the alarm sound on their auto so that they can memorize it when it goes off. Maybe they should. Then they could turn over and go back to sleep and let the others try and find out how to stop the noise.
Hwyl,
Sam
I can see them all stood around in their undies now. Great story!
DIo
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