A woman has called today for support from her family in trading in their car, a new Porsche, for a damaged Reliant Robin, in spite of the Porsche still having an outstanding loan owing on it.
”The Porsche gets updated every year,” a confidant of the woman told us, “some contract or whatever. It’s a total pain to have to keep learning how a modern car operates. Handbrakes becoming switches. Seats warmed not by your butt but the car. I don’t know. Keys that aren’t keys. They’re like buttons or something. Too much acceleration. Too many functions to keep track of when all you want is to get from A to B, preferably by way of the rest of the alphabet, so the family spends a LOT of quality time together.”
So the solution is to get a car so outdated, everyone in the family can understand how it works, even if it doesn’t do much and is liable to fall apart?
”Yes, the younger members hate the idea, but what do they know. They like the Porsche. They don’t want the Reliant Robin. Little bit lacking in patriotic fervour the kids. Had it too good. Not grown up with enough communicable disease issues. Too much food. They’re too soft! They just expect to be able to move and live and work and drive around an entire continent, just like that. Well, that Reliant will sort that. State of it. Ha!”
So the woman is likely to succeed in convincing her family to trade down and trade down heavily?
”She will if she can get the kids’ adopted grandfather to weigh in on her side.”
Is he likely to?
”Yes. He wants the kids stuck at home helping him work his allotment.”