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EASTER is upon us, and as we consider stories of resurrection - Labor's return to power in the Hunter heartland, Australia's climb back to the top of the one-day international cricket pile, Scott Morrison's reincarnation as a soft cuddly welfare minister - it's timely we talk of rebirth.
In this case, of my car. That which rarely dies . . . but which goes close from time to time (usually a very inconvenient time), giving roadside assistance it's reason to be.
It's all about faith, and I've shown it in this particular beast for 18 years now.
We got it the same time as our cat. And no disrespect to old puss, but there's a sweep on as to which will go first.
The other day it seemed the car had won after it died, without warning, in a most violent and sudden manner.
Seeing as it runs on LPG, I feared for a moment I was about to die in a similar violent and sudden manner.
In the spirit of Easter, I cried out to "Jaysus", and wondered who he would have invoked had his car broke down. God? I muttered that, too.
The vehicle formerly referred to as "Old Faithful" now resembled it's Yellowstone namesake, sputtering to a steamfest hissing halt shortly after dropping my youngest off for her maths test first period.
Praise the lord she didn't miss that because I now figured advanced arithmetical skills would be required to calculate repair costs.
Indeed, this looked like the kind of definitive breakdown you always fear with old vehicles.
The one that pushes you over the tipping point of patch-up job to new car. Kaching!!
On the other hand, the novice mechanic in me prayed it was something minor and fixable, like an O ring. Or in my novice mechanical mind, a WTF ring.
If only I could have rung.
The great thing about resilience is knowing things can always be worse. And of course this particular morning, they were. My mobile was flat. Cue total recall of those fatal last words exiting home just 20 minutes earlier: "I'm taking the charger."
So now I'm standing like a geezer next to a geyser, totally late for work, phoneless, except for a friendly passing delivery person who kindly lends me a call after she satisfies herself I'm not some sad sack of stay the heck away from me.
How she came to that conclusion, I don't know. People are kind I suppose.
So I phoned a friend.
Well I phoned my partner, who wasn't overly friendly about the idea of dropping everything and answering my SOS. But she did for all manner of reasons I conveniently bundle under the banner heading "love".
I would have rung roadside, too, but my delivery lady only had one call in her bag of charity before she had to chuff off.
If my mobile hadn't been flat I would also have received texts from work inquiring if I was coming in today to do the tasks increasingly frantic workmates were fearing they may have to do.
Ain't it funny the permutations that ripple out when the normal rhythms of life are disrupted?
Well, not that funny. Being down a car was really going to throw out the home/work/picking up kids after school/life balance. Talk about first-world catastrophe.
As I looked at my vehicle fizzing away I started to see symbolism. Broken down, wreck, redundant. And in that transcendent moment, I fought, as you do, the urge to feel sorry for myself. Several times, in fact, until the cavalry arrived. And then with an audience, I really trowelled it on.
Quite rightly I copped a good dose of "talk to the hand" as I was dropped off at work to figure out how the car cadaver was going to be moved to the mechanical morgue.
The beauty was I could now call roadside, but the trick was I would have to be roadside when roadside turned up. And that's not easy when you're at work.
So in my lunch hour, I ducked out and rolled the dice, taking up position under the shade of a tree, to wait. For how long, I had no idea.
At that moment people came out from the house I was standing in front of, and naturally it felt like I was casing the joint.
So I reassured them I was not a pest, and they seemed to buy it.
In keeping with the spiritual overtones of this tale, they turned out to be Jehovah's Witnesses who promptly pressed a pamphlet into my palm asking if I wanted to know about Jesus. If Jesus drove a tow truck, you bet.
Fifteen short minutes later (praise be the call-out service) a saviour turned up and towed my vehicle away.
Then I waited on a call from the mechanic. Always unsettling when the opening line is, "If you were ever going to scrap Old Faithful, now's the time."
Funny the power of prayer, though.
A couple of days later after a run through the home handyman bar, a solution was devised. And when the rock rolled back my vehicle miraculously rose again. Running a little rough, but not bad in terms of crucifixion, and loss of oil.
And so as the bunny does the rounds this weekend, Easter has brought new meaning to the word "resur-wreckion".
Hallelujah, I say, moving forward, literally, from that pun to the next rego.