Is That My Vauxhall Van?
Recently my wife seems to have become addicted to ordering things from the internet. Hardly a day goes by without there being a knock on the door and I am confronted with some miserable looking delivery driver struggling with a large box and muttering the words “sign here.” I am then obliged to attempt to sign one of those infuriating electronic delivery note machines. You know the ones that make your writing look like a child’s or as if you are using the wrong hand to sign with.
Increasingly more often these days when I check through our Bank statements I find a transaction I don’t recognise and immediately start panicking that someone has stolen our card details and gone off on a spending spree. The trouble with ordering things online is that it is sometimes difficult to see what you are actually buying .The highlight of which occurred recently when my wife announced that we should “bulk buy” items in order to save money. I reluctantly agreed to this (anything for a quiet life) but returned home to find a container of washing-up liquid in our porch which was the size of an oil drum and would be enough to keep a large catering establishment going for several months.
We’ve had this thing in the garage since June and the level doesn’t appear to have gone down at all yet. I am the first to admit that I loathe trudging around the shops but sometimes I point out that the item that cost us slightly less online actually ended up costing more by the time we have paid for the delivery.
My friend used to have an old Vauxhall van and was able to earn quite a good living making deliveries for companies who would otherwise make a loss by the time they had paid for the fuel and employing a driver etc. I would occasionally join him on his travels and entered the crazy world of the delivery driver which seemed to largely consist of getting up ridiculously early and then taking delight in waking other people up. It also involved being chased by dogs, having arguments with traffic wardens, countless road rage incidents and then getting penalised for not making deliveries at the correct time. All of which made me realise why van drivers drive like maniacs.
The Vauxhall was a good workhorse as I recall and it served us well for both work and play. I used it countless times to move house and we would regularly go to France and fill it up with as much cheap alcohol as we could, much to the annoyance of British customs as they couldn’t do anything about it. I became very attached to that van and it was always there through the good times and bad.
I was therefore saddened to hear when it was stolen from my friend’s garage. The problem was it was too big to fit completely into the garage and so stuck out slightly, this was its downfall and the van was never seen again, or so my friend thought. The day he received the cheque from the insurance company he was in the car park of a local supermarket and saw a gaunt, rat faced individual smoking a roll-up cigarette at the wheel of his beloved van. Although he had received the insurance money he felt aggrieved and by chance there happened to be a police officer nearby (a rarity indeed).He explained the situation to the police officer and the officer approached the vehicle. What happened next was like something out of a movie, the policeman tried to grab the keys as the van attempted to drive off and the officer was forced to jump onto the bonnet to avoid being run over, other officers and security guards smashed every window in the van and my friend pushed shopping trolleys in front of it to try and stop it, the van smashed through these and then rammed a police van which tried to block it. The police helicopter swooped down and by this time the van had four flat tyres, no windows or driver’s door. Amazingly the driver escaped but was later caught through DNA evidence obtained at the scene. Unfortunately that was the end of the van though!
Jon Barlow
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