The scourge of mankind – ‘La Voiture Verte’

When I were a lad, and all this were fields etc, my family were struggling to make ends meet. My dad would attempt to ease our poverty and help the finances by rolling up his sleeves and utilising his formidable mechanical and salesmanship skills in the auto trading market.

(I feel I may have romanticised this somewhat…What he actually did was buy shitheap, scrap-pile sheds for a couple of quid, patch them up with pop-rivets and hopefully sell them on for a bit of a profit.)

Still, to his credit, he was quite adept at this…yet as his ‘career’ flourished, my dad started to notice a trend developing.

He would always struggle to sell a green car.

Now apparently there is a deep human behavioural issue here. Green is more of a ‘selective’ colour for a car you see, unlike your run-of-the-mill ‘silver’s & ‘black’s...So public choice was not as easily swayed by some old, worthless, rusty knacker of a motor…in green. For my dad, they quickly become more trouble than they were worth.

He learned this lesson the hard way a few times before twunting logic and psychology out of the window, making his choice and declaring: ‘Green cars are unlucky. No more green cars for the Flake family. EVER!’

What started as his annoyance then became a family tradition, then a ritual…then an obsession…to be hammered shamelessly through to every.single.generation

None of us could even look at a green car without receiving a customary ‘clip around the ear’ole’

Socially aware of all forms of equality *cough – Daily Mail reader – cough*, my dad would have cared not a jot if I had brought home a same-sex, mixed race, drug addicted, Illegal immigrant criminal psychopath as my new ‘significant other’; but if my partner-in-waiting had driven a green car he would have refused to let them through the door and bellowed at them through the letterbox to “Cunt the fuck off!”.

Inevitably, there was the occasional rebellion…& Dad was not happy.

My sister once dared to buy a ‘cute’ little green Fiesta in the 80’s, and one day it suffered a slight prang. My dad leapt at the chance to prove his theory correct. “It’s the car…THE CAR!” he screamed, like a wizened, rollup-smoking, soothsaying harbinger of doom.

She was promptly ordered to sell the car immediately and she begrudgingly did so. Later that year she mislaid her purse in a nightclub and lost £30. “It’s THE CAR!... DON’T YOU SEE??!?” Dad yelped, with a funny look in his eyes.

My brother went on holiday to Thailand a few years back and had a great time…just a few short weeks after he returned…the Tsunami hit.

Tragedy…unimaginable horror…huge loss of life and property.

How did my dad explain this? Tectonic plates? Climate change? Act of god?

Nope, it was because my brother had once bought an old green Fiat 500*…in the early 90’s…and he passed the subsequent curse over to that innocent country like a airborne virus carrier.

“What were you thinking?” my dad barked at my flabbergasted brother as we watched the death toll rise.

September the 11th was attributed to a lime coloured Talbot Samba I borrowed for a fortnight when I was on the dole.

In my dad’s evermore eccentric mind, the current global financial crisis is entirely due to the fact that a year and a half ago I considered buying a new car in British Racing Green. I didn’t actually go through with it (more than my life’s worth) but the mere fact that I considered it has now somehow resulted in a worldwide economic meltdown. So now you know who’s to blame. Sorry everybody.

When Mini-Pooflake turned two years old, I took him round my folks’ house and my dad proudly sat him on his knee.

“Can you say ‘Grandad?...Graaaannnnnd-daaaad!” my old man cooed.

My son started to cutely stutter: “G….g-g….“

Then my dad bluntly interrupted: “Actually, bollocks to that. Say ‘I WILL NEVER FUCKING BUY A GREEN CAR'......saaaay it…….SAY IT!!!!”

We don’t visit very much anymore.




*which he nicknamed ‘the bionic bogey’…it was ace – but don’t tell my dad I said that


( Pooflake braces for an onslaught..., Fri 21 Nov 2008, 11:55, 12 replies)

This is the winner
Not the entire post. Just this sentence.

"September the 11th was attributed to a lime coloured Talbot Samba I borrowed for a fortnight when I was on the dole."

I salute you sir!

Also my mum has a thing about green cars as well.
(powervator and NONE SHALL PASS, Fri 21 Nov 2008, 11:57, closed)

All the way through reading this
I was trying to work out what the pun was going to be!

Nice to see some subtle double-bluffing, or something.
(Son of Sam-i-am We're all as mad as hatters here, Fri 21 Nov 2008, 12:20, closed)

Hey...!

I'm not just a one-trick, pun pony you know!

/rant

*checks title of QotW*

*thinks up pun*

*waits til Thursday*
( Pooflake braces for an onslaught..., Fri 21 Nov 2008, 12:49, closed)

Thusday?
Are you implying that I leaped in a bit too soon?

Hmmm...think you might be right there.

I still feel dirty.
( ousgg is not seeking approval, Fri 21 Nov 2008, 15:57, closed)

Pedantry alert
"La voiture verte".

Sorry dude, but it's for your own good and you know it :)
(bazmorningstar efil4nat3b, Fri 21 Nov 2008, 12:07, closed)

Duly Edited...

fucking Babelfish.

I don't speak French, but I do kiss that way...
( Pooflake braces for an onslaught..., Fri 21 Nov 2008, 12:13, closed)

tease
oh, go on then.




*tongues*
(bazmorningstar efil4nat3b, Fri 21 Nov 2008, 12:16, closed)

All of my cars have been green*






*apart from the red one
(Halfy By light alone, Fri 21 Nov 2008, 12:53, closed)

After reading this...
... there seems to be some sort of Douglas Adams logic to the whole thing... I Like it!
(SillyMoo, Fri 21 Nov 2008, 13:26, closed)

Gotta click this one
'Cos it's true!
The only car I've crashed? - Green!
The only car that's crashed into me? - Green!
The only car that I've had to scrap because a great big fuckoff lorry reversed over it? - Yep. Green!
The only car to miss the corner by the house i used to live in, fly over two front gardens and bury itself in my front house wall - you guessed it - errm blue, but it had a green stripe!

And a click for the description of your dad as a "..wizened rollup-smoking, soothsaying harbinger of doom".
Having met the guy I think he look like Yoda's older hard-drinking hell-raising brother.

*click*.
(Captain Placid 24/7 ball gags, brownie mix and clown porn, Fri 21 Nov 2008, 15:31, closed)

Clicked
Wonderfully written, loved it
(Wavo Did not touch it, it was like that when I got here, Fri 21 Nov 2008, 16:55, closed)

in the uk green and brown cars...
are 'statistically' more likely to be involved in an RTA according to insurors

two things

1. this is probably because they have been bought by imbeciles who know NOTHING about cars - the entire motor trade know of this phenomenon - no one wants to buy a bloody green or brown car, they are but earthy organic colours, cars are machines, sliver black, metallic

2. 'statistically' 9 out of 10 people enjoy gang rape
( spimf ™ is whoever you want him to be, Sun 23 Nov 2008, 15:29, closed)