Being blonde and female, I should have known better than to take my Fiat to a main dealer to get it serviced.
It’s not that I’m stupid, per se. It’s just that main dealers have an invisible automatic scanning system so that, when a blonde woman walks through the door, an alarm goes off inside the service centre, a red light starts flashing, a till ringing sound reverberates throughout the workshop, and greasy mechanics stand ready with their spanners and clipboards bearing long checklists of mechanical failings.
I always swear I will never do it again, but like most women I’m a stickler for doing things by the book. So when the Panda ‘service’ light lit up I could not resist the temptation to take it to a main dealer instead of a garage under the arches, in order to ensure that I got one of those official stamps in my service book. Why do I persist with this lunacy?
The omens were not good as I walked into the big, swanky Fiat showroom on an industrial estate in Guildford.
The young woman on the reception desk was competing for the title of ‘prettiest girl who never had to be bothered to be nice to anyone because all the important people, i.e., men called Gary, fancy her anyway even when she is damnably rude so there’s clearly no point wasting breath being polite or helpful, especially to women, so clear off’.
She didn’t even look up as I stood in front of her. ‘Er-hem,’ I said. ‘Uh?’ she yawned, looking up at me through perfect almond eyes, her perfect dolly-bird blow-dried hair framing her perfectly made-up dolly-bird face.
‘I’m booked in for a full service and MOT?’
‘Name?’ she said, looking past me. I told her.
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