Mavis - An Emblem of her Time

Well Mavis, my 1997 Mazda Bravo crew cabe 4x4 ute with all-terrains, which we bought for $550 and then drove 300kms straight afterwards with minimal issues, a temperamental fan belt and a very dicey electrical history, had a little NDE (near-death experience) one day…

I say NDE, but I probably should say PAPCTDE (Prior and Probably Contributing to Death experience). I was coming home from a 4wd trip; admittedly not the greatest of 4wd trips I had been on…I had somehow missed the general idea that if there’s a giant ditch with a reflective sign pole next to it, you probably shouldn’t drive directly into it. My very charitable mate said, “Don’t worry mate, all us bogans have done it”. This comforted me for about 7.8 seconds until I realised that he was a very nice chap, but internally he probably would have been rightfully questioning my directionally-divergent driving patterns. Anyway, after this little signage, on we drove, with me desperately attempting not to embarrass myself further. And somehow the grate on the front of my ute fell off. 

Today, it still lies there; in some forsaken corner of Gippsland, where none but the bogans and marijuana cultivation specialists dare to tread (are those synonyms? HoohOoohoo don’t shoot me O Bearer of the High-Powered Rifle), lying under some bush, as the cascade of eastern rains drop slowly through the canopy of the leafy sky, hopping from branch to branch and eventually making a small pool right underneath the grate, who has now philosophically accepted his fate, and embraced the nihilism of his severed existence, and will rest in that, until all times and ages may come to an end. Sniff…I think there’s a draught coming under the door…sniff…you know you can contract a cold in a manner of seconds…sniff…which can cause you to…weep…against your…sniff…will.

I was being silly. On the way back from the trip, I was hitting the corners on the dirt road like a father smacking his disobedient children. The back end of the ute was skidding out and swinging everywhere. Glorying in the fishtailing sensation like a mackerel fleeing from a National Geographic photographer, as I tore the gravel edges to shreds. By myself in the ute, with the world at my pedals, I gunned the antediluvian agricultural machine around the sharpest of corners, and by about my fourth fishtail, I was getting pretty cocky. Like a cockatoo on marijuana, I deliriously continued in my antics, until…

I swung too much. And it swung back…and then swung again…and again…crumpets and crayfish…again…

I was losing control very rapidly. I tried very valiantly to recorrect, but it was too late. Mavis, glorious Mavis…Scourge of the East, Sole Contributor to the Holes in the Ozone Layer, Terror of the Aldi Carpark…Emblem of Automotive Functionality and Nightmare of City Slickers…plunged very unhappily over the edge of the road.

CCRRRRRUUUUUUNNNNCHHHHHHHHHH SMMMMMMAAAAAAAAAAAHAHASH GGGGGGGRrrrrRRRr CCRrRRrRRReeeeAAAAAA bok bok begeek CRRRROOOOOOOOOOOCCCCCODILEGUTS KABLAMMMMMMMMMM

That is the exact sound it made when the left side of Mavis pashed the tree. It was a smooch like that which would have made Romeo blush and Juliet faint. The car and the tree passionately embraced…and the tree must have been alluring enough that Mavis stopped plain in her tracks and snuggled up to the tree very closely. Poor old me was left with the shock of the impact, and also the disgust at having to be privy as my car made out with some random tree. Eugh. YyYyYuuuuck. I thought Mavis was past this, but apparently the old girl still had a bit of…energy…oh dear. But there I sat, with a broken window, a completely mashed up left hand side of my car, glass absolutely everywhere, and whatever inane song I had been playing beforehand just quietly popping away in the background. Not a good day.

I was perfectly fine, health wise. But still my car was very much stuck against this tree. They were inseparable, and there was no way my efforts alone could cause the divorce.

It was time to call in the big guns. Or gun…singular.

I dialed the only fellow I knew could help me, and I knew was in the area (he had been driving just ahead of me, but had not seen Mavis’ relationship with the tree rapidly develop).

This fellow, a man who I shall refer to as Nebuchadnezzar Dieselfinger, or just Dieselfinger, is a man of mystery. He is known by many names, and it is folk belief he dwells somewhere in a cave, in the desert, living off locusts and wild honey…oh whoops, getting him mixed up with John the Baptist…or what it Angus the Presbyterian? Oh I don’t know, ANYWAY. Dieselfinger, it is said, is a wild man, who lives in the wilderness, eating nothing but two minute noodles cooked in engine oil, or if it was a special occasion, solidified beer crystals baked in an air fryer. Who knows how much of this is true, but certainly Dieselfinger is a man of great mystique. One thing that is for sure is that he is a genius with all things car-related, and could make a car work with nothing but a litre of WD-40, an adjustable screwdriver, a can of coke (not diet coke, that doesn’t work) and his coconut-sized fist.

I called him, and told him of my predicament. He assured me that he would come and help breakup the inter-special romance between Mavis and her dendrological lover. Roaring down the track he came, diesel fumes shooting everywhere. 

“Heyagaan moooiyt. Howdjadothat moiiiiyt?” he asked charitably.

I had no answer for him. He reassured me that it was all good, and that while I had been an idiot, he would fix this untimely romance. Tying a rope between the cars, he ripped Mavis from the arms of the suave tree. Mavis would have to stick to eHarmony from this point on; no way was I letting her get that close to another tree.

But just as Dieselfinger pulled me out, for some reason, a police car ambled up to the scene. It was in the middle of nowhere, so I was rather confused as to why it was there. Frozen, I knew that if the policeman saw the destruction on my car, that would be the end of poor old Mavis. But the car drove on as Dieselfinger and I tried to look like we had just stopped to look at the fascinating flora of the region. The right side of the car looked perfectly fine, and that was what was visible to the policeman, so Mavis was safe. Wew. 

Let’s just say, we took to backroads home, and Mavis got a replacement door…which was white (the rest of the car was grey). And she lived on…for a little longer.

In the end she did die, but parts of me wonder whether it was the damage to her body, or the trauma of losing her beloved Tree, or maybe the fact that she couldn’t log on to eHarmony because she had no fingers, or hands for that matter, that made her eventually deteriorate. But we shall get to that.

Your broke Slovenian doormat launderer

Mitch