Everyone’s talking shite. I’m just breathing it in.

Car’s due for its MOT next week. You know the drill: every time you walk in there, you’re expecting to get your knickers pulled down and a spark plug shoved right up your arse. Modern car garages — a fine theatre of extortion.

The missus, Anita F. Kite, genius of the domestic guerrilla, hatches a cunning plan.

“I’ll be fucked if I’m paying for their £40 windy wipers. We’ll get in first — tyres, wipers, the lot — even topping up the washer water for the wipers. Arnold Clark rip the pish.”

And off we march, heroes of fiscal resistance.

£359 lighter, two new rear tyres glistening with smugness, front and back wipers pristine and wet. We’ve booked the MOT. We’ve outsmarted the bastards. 

Only later, pan on the hob — the DeLonghi still away at warranty camp, probably being interrogated by customer service — receipt in hand, it hits: we’ve spent more dodging the scam than the scam itself. A pyrrhic victory dressed in Halfords bags.

Next week, they’ll still find something. They always do. 

A tear in the upholstery continuum, a whisper in the carburettor, a ghost in the glovebox.

And there I’ll be, bent over the bonnet again, wallet gasping for mercy.

But for now, we bask in our righteous stupidity — the brief ecstasy of thinking we’ve won.

Because everyone loves the smell of their own shite. Especially when it smells like burning rubber and fresh wipers.

– Tom Kite.