(He is due to have his windscreen replaced),
I thought I would tell a short but curious tale of incident with my windscreen a few years ago.
Sat down comfortably?... let's begin.
Over it's long suffering existence my poor Cavalier has had several glass replacements.
A rear screen after a very young girl threw a 'small' jagged rock at a friend and missed.
Hitting the bottom corner of the rear screen instead.
The whole thing shattered immediately.
Bugger!
Easter Sunday of all days, so the claims office was less than in a party mood.
"Go to the local Autoglass place and get the glass fitted there.
But pay for it out-right and claim back all but the excess."
In 1986, a rear screen cost us £270. Ouch.
The next was a front screen, after a stone was flicked up by a van... a windscreen installer's van!!
Ooh the irony.
Too big a chip for a repair... bugger #2!!
The next episode in the glass saga,
the driver's door glass was put through by a scrote on a rampage.
Mine was the eighth and final car attacked within a 1/4 mile radius. The dead-locks and glove-box lock all kept the scrote out.
But he managed to mangle the lock barrel before giving up and putting the window through instead.
What a delightful gift to wake up to.
Amazingly, for a rare occasion, my local dibble came out in his scene of crime van and dusted the car, and took some glass pieces with him.
Sadly he was not very good with the Mr Sheen, and left my car dustier than he found it.
I won't be using him again for car valetting services -
Amazingly #2, the scrote was caught and charged using the evidence from my car - glass fragments embedded in his clothes.
Apparently original 20-odd year old GM glass is different in structure / composition to aftermarket or later glass fragments.
He probably got out a week later and given a job as the local councillor...
Apologies, I veered off into fully fledged cynic mode.
Now then for the weird one.
On my third glass replacement, I had heard a thud after passing under a bridge over my local motorway.
I could clearly see a big chip very close to the bottom left side of the screen.
Being near the corner, I just knew that this was potentially a crack waiting to happen.
A replacement was scheduled to be fitted on the following Monday.
For the next couple of days, the chip stared at me menacingly... like they do, the evil buggers.
Got up on the Saturday, and spotted that the chip had gone...???
What the chuff?, where has it gone.?
So - time for a strange phone call.
I rang up the glass people to explain that "the wind-screen fairy has been out and fixed it for me - I will no longer be needing a new screen on Monday".
Amazingly #3, they did not think that I was crackers.
To this day, I cannot explain what happened to the missing chip.
Wrap your grey matter around that one.
