Schadenfreude: The feeling experienced after having spent years listening to your mother explain that ‘you drive like a maniac’, ‘you’re awfully close to the car in front’, ‘you’re not on the Autobahn now, you know?’ etc. etc. of getting to hear her describe how she’s driven her car into a wall because: “I wanted to reset the milometer trip thingy - you know, that little button next to the speedometer that tells you how far you’ve gone? And I put my arm between the spokes of the steering wheel in order to press it just as I was about to go round a bend.”
Just her pride and the front, passenger-side wing were damaged. And my belief that there really is no sense of justice in the universe was a little shaken, too.
American English Word For Today: “odometer” - milometer trip thingy
Song playing as this was published: Ben Harper - “How to survive a broken heart”
To quote Avenue Q: “Happiness at the misfortune of others”? That is German.
Which of course explains why I laughed [via a weird Germany is nearly Norway genetic link]. Said he who has had his mother very recently doing the same while I was driving - it hasn’t worked in years; she didn’t believe me, so now it’s going to spend God knows how long clicking uselessly every eighth of a mile.
2nd AmE word of the day: wing (of a car) = fender.
Anyhoo: Avenue Q is the rude Muppets, no? And every eighth of a mile? How old is it? My first ever car was pretty old and ’stuck’ at 149,047 miles but at least it was post-decimalisation and clicked 10 times per mile…..
J: Thank you. For some bizarre reason, although I knew a wing was a fender (and a trunk is the thick, woody bit of a tree) I’d never given it much thought and had the term “fender-bender” down in my mind as a really minor accident in which only the bumper was scratched,
as opposed to a homosexual guitarist, I’d never thought of it in any way referring to the wing. Don’t even ask how my brain is coping with the whole handy/mobile/cell phone confusion.I always thought the Fender was the bumper……
Snap on fender = bumper. But let’s not get into American car-isms before I reduce yet another American to hysterics by calling a turn-signal/light a winker.
Yep, Avenue Q is the very entertaining, rude Muppets; much better than the poster suggests. Go and see it when it gets to Stuttgart. Or possibly wherever the hell you are if I remember that you’re not in Germany anymore (although from the impression you’ve given, Stuttgart might get it first).
It might be supposed to be every 10th but, er, you never can tell with this car. It has been very useful though, if only for proving how unhelpful the Haines manual can be; the book cunningly shows multiple shots of the innards of component X, while never quite getting round to showing what the outside looks like or where exactly it is under the bonnet, so the usual logic runs on age as the inverse of cleanliness and then trying to remember the order things have been replaced and so what that round bit must be.
Haddock: The fender is the metal part that is NOT the bumper, meaning the metal part above the wheel. Anyhoo: I cry everday over the usage of our common language, not just by your side but mine also. Actual: fender-bender = stalled traffic due to the idiots looking at the damage.
Anyhoo: It’s Haynes, for heaven’s’ (ooh, is/are heaven/s plural?) sake! Anyway, I’ve read their manual for “Woman” (the 1.8l model upwards). The diagrams are never correct….
BTW: Was in London this very morning….. Have to admit - and note this, Ave Q PR people! - the posters put me off…
820: Noted. But the accident is still a fender-bender too, right? It’s not just the “Schaulustige” (sorry, can’t thing of a BritE term)..?
Incidentally, ate pulled pork, ribs, cornbread etc. last night. Finally understand why there’s an obesity problem over there if it all tastes so good…….
You shunned the cornbread. I could get AvQ tickets if you like…
yes and Schaulistige works also. The pork thing: it is so much better with sweat tea in the evening summer heat, on the freshly cut grass while the children run around chasing fireflies. Even better with the beach nearby… Paradise
I would like to specify it was EASTERN NC barbecue.
INOAP: Whatever. The photograph of the owner of the restaurant I went to shows him wearing a KANSAS t-shirt. I’m sure NC is very pretty - at least it appeared so from the air and somewhat less so during a very dull conference in modern, grey, but thankfully air-conditioned, buildings.
The stuff with your mother sounds very familiar. Are we related?
Queen Of Swords: Dad, you’re fooling no one with that name (and I can see your e-mail address, remember?)