"Do you know what I love," she says to him dreamily, their limbs all tangled on the back seat of the bus, "I love that feeling when you fill a whole notebook with stories or shopping lists, and then you flick through the pages over and over… you can hear the ink crackling… "So what do you love?" "Hmmm." He thinks for a long while. "You know when you get a big spot on your face, right. All day you're just busting to pop it but you know it's not the right time. So you wait and wait and let it get to that boiling point. Then you finally squeeze and that's what I love, that little rush you get when it just whooshes out so perfectly and neatly." "You fucking make me sick!" she sqwarks. She removes her leg from over his leg and his arm from under her arm. She picks up the ridiculous little handbag and scrunches over beside the window.

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It's twenty minutes to half an hour to work on the bus each morning, depending on the Moron to Bus Stop ratio. There's always someone who has to argue with the driver, lose their bus pass, not have the right change, or generally mess with the efficiency of Lothian Buses.

But I look forward to the journey. It's a delicious chunk of time to just sit up the top and daydream, to attempt to put on lipstick, peer into peoples backyards, snigger at bad hairstyles, doze briefly, or chase fallen lipstick down the aisle.

There's a lot of elderly people on the route. They're loud and funny and always bitching about the weather. The other day some old biddie got on, flashed her OAP card then sat down. The bus driver called her back and reminded her that she had to pay 40p as it's only free after 9.30 AM.

"Ooh, I clean forgot!" she blushed.

"Yoooo stupid old fart," muttered a sweet little dame in front of me, who looked at least ten years her senior, "Everyone knows that."

Then she gave her the finger.

Another day an old guy went sprawling when a particularly mental driver really hammered on the brakes at his stop. He giggled and brushed off his coat, and we all smiled back at him, knowing it just as easily could have been one of us. Except for one cranky wrinkly who snarled, "Look, sonny. Maybe you're just too old to ride the bus now!"

If the oldies aren't entertaining me, there are plenty of intruiging conversations to drop in on. There's politics…

"You know they keep saying on the news how disappointing the turnout was for the Scottish elections, I can tell ya what the real reason for that is. It's because it's just so bloody borin'. Why don't they make it worth our while? They should put it on the telly and make the politicians sing or dance or do magic, and then we ring up and vote for our favourite. We wouldn't have to go out in the rain or anything."

… and technology…

"I don't know how I'd get through the working day without Solitaire." "Don't you think it's a bit borin' and lonely? You can only play it on your own."

"But that's the idea!"

"Personally I think Hearts is more excitin'."

"You can only play that on your own too!"

"Aye, but Solitaire just seems more solitary to me. I think it's got something to do with the name."

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There'd been a little rattle in Manuel for a week or so now. Nothing too bad we thought, but we booked it in for a service today. But last night on my way to singing class, I had a little adventure. Somewhere around Parliament House, the rattle turned to a clunk. Then when I stopped at the lights in Woden, Manuel stalled and wouldn't budge. And of course I happened to be on a hill with half a dozen cars behind me. I turned the engine over and Manuel gave a halfhearted urrgh urrgh urrgh before dying again. Up until that point I had completely adored Manuel, so compact and reliable compared with the piece of shit cars I've had before. But as soon as he misbehaved, I became filled with panic and rage. The light was going to be green in a second. I couldn't bear the thought of being stranded. Like one of those stranded losers that break down at a major intersection and pace round with a mobile phone while every passing vehicle beeps in disgust. And I'm pretty crap on hills as it is. I've only been driving a stick for a few months. I have no idea what I am doing. So in the end my tactic was to press all the pedals in a random sequence like a deranged organist, simultaneously screaming, "COME ON YOU LITTLE RED FUCKER!" Manuel obediently limped around the corner. I thought I was going to make it to my teacher's house but then the revolting burning smell started. I pulled over and called the NRMA dude. Then I called my sister, and we ranted and raged about our Piece Of Shit car that we only bought six months ago and how dare it do this to us! Then I called Jenny and told her I wouldn't be able to make it to singing class. The trio would be a duo tonight. But as it turned out, Inge hadn't made it either due to "illness". This made our teacher very suspicious of my "breakdown". He asked Jenny would she like to do the class solo. Jenny thought for three seconds and said, "Naaah." She left him huffing and harrumphing at his piano, apparently believing that the three of us had concocted this elaborate scheme to wriggle out of class. Then she came to keep me company while I waited for the NRMA. He didn't take long. And he was rather cute. I hoped that nothing too major was wrong with the car, but at the same time I hoped there was something majorly wrong with it, so I wouldn't look like an idiot in the presence of such cuteness. No such luck. I popped the bonnet and he peered under. "Umm. Where's your radiator cap?" "What?" "You don't have a cap on your radiator." "Holy shit." Then I remembered. Rhi had been checking the oil and water about two weeks ago. Manuel is her first car, so she's never had to do that before. She kept asking me, "Am I doing this right?" and I was saying, "Yep, yep" without really looking. When she screwed the radiator cap back on, I'd thought to myself that I usually had to press down harder for it to go on. But I thought maybe she didn't need to exert as much energy as I, being of superior strength and fitness. Now I realised we'd been driving around for up to two weeks without a radiator cap, letting things bubble and boil to the point of disaster. During this time I'd complained to Rhi that the car "smelled funny". She said it was the air conditioning. I said, "Air conditioning doesn't smell like dirt and burny things." But did I look into it further? Nooo. "So there's your problem," NRMA dude said with a little grin. "Right." "Umm. Why are there chicken feathers under your hood?" Jenny asked. I peered closer and frowned. "Maybe we ran over a chicken somewhere along the line." "Empty radiator combined with BBQing chicken would explain the burning smell you mentioned," said NRMA dude. It was all rather humiliating. He got a bottle of water and topped up the radiator. While Manuel gulped and sputtered in relief, I decided I had to try and redeem myself. "I know what you're thinking, that I am a stupid woman driver who can't do something as basic as keep her radiator cap on, but you have to know it wasn't my fault!" "Is that right?" "I own this car with my sister, see. She's never had a car before and the other day she was checking the oil and water and she was putting the cap back on and she asked me was it on properly and I said yep, yep but it looks like she didn't put it on properly at all! Can you believe her? I mean how hard is to –" "And you were supervising?" "Well, yes." "So why didn't you check?" "Because we were on our way out to lunch and I was hungry!" "I really don't think it's fair to blame your sister." "Bah!" He topped up the radiator then we putted up to Philip to look for a cap. It's a suburb choked with car yards and petrol stations, but everything was either closed or cap-less. We were parked right next to a Ford dealership. There were dozens of Fords with Ford-y radiator caps just ripe to fit onto my own little Ford, but no Ford salesman around to help us. "It's a pity we can't break in and steal one," mused the NRMA dude. "Well why don't you?" I coaxed. "You have the tools!" But no. In the end the only option was to limp back home with Jenny following me in case I broke down again. "You'll probably have to stop three or four times when the temperature gauge goes up, then fill 'er up again and wait ten minutes before you go home," NRMA dude explained. "Or if it dies, just call a tow truck." "Bloody hell!" "Just be thankful you didn't blow a head gasket!" "Yes sir," I said sheepishly. It was the longest 15 minutes of my life, putting along and hoping the car wouldn't explode. Miraculously, the gauge didn't move at all. Jenny drove in front of me and the NRMA guy followed behind. He'd said he had to go elsewhere, but ended up tailing us. Perhaps he didn't trust my driving. Finally we were back in Braddon and I thanked the NRMA dude for his help. "Why is it whenever I call the NRMA it's always something stupid?" I pondered. "On your TV ads it's always high drama, like crumpled cars or people with their limbs on fire." "Heh," said the NRMA dude. "And your slogan, Call N-R-M-A For H-E-L-P. I think it should be Call N-R-M-A, You D-O-R-K." "Heh," he said again. And off he went. Jenny came bolting over from her car. "Did you see that? He was in behind you and I was in front of you! I was driving along thinking, 'Woohoo! Shauna's in a cavalcade!" "I know! A cavalcade! I felt like JFK or something."

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There has been progress in the Learning To Drive A Stick caper. My sister has been such a patient teacher, putting up with me shrieking "What gear?! What gear!?" in the exact same ear-piercing pitch that Tweety Bird says "I did! I did taw a puddytat!" She's also survived two brushes with death in which I failed to give way (too busy enquiring about the gear I was in) and only slightly rolls her eyes when I stop at the lights, hand poised over the handbrake, asking in panicky tones, "Is this a hill? Is this a hill?", even when the road is perfectly flat. Rhi's in Queensland this week on a business trip, leaving me to fend for myself. I fully planned to stay housebound and walk anywhere I needed to go, but soon I was eating nothing but Vegemite and some suspect-looking bread. It was time to venture out in Manuel all on my own. I've driven to work, to the supermarket, to the movies, out to Fyshwick (to order my new puter, NOT to buy porn. I know what you're thinking, Canberra kids) only stalling twice, only crunching the gears three times in total. Not too shabby, I thought. Then today it all came undone. I went out to buy supplies for a gathering tonight, and the Saturday morning traffic was a little crazy. But I made it home in one piece. I parked Manuel and popped open the hatch, got out of the car and promptly slammed the door shut, locking the keys inside. My heart turned to shit. We only have two sets of keys, and the other is in Cairns right now. I examined the hatch and tried to remove the cover thingy. It wouldn't budge. I wondered if I could somehow dive over the cover thingy without getting my fat arse lodged in the small gap between the back seat and the ceiling. We've only had Manuel for a month, and I didn't want to have to explain a hacked-up hatch to my sister. So I decided to be more resourceful. All I had to do was find something long enough to reach from the back of the car to one of the doors, then I could somehow unlock the door. There were no long objects inside the car, so in the end I took off one of the windscreen wiper blades, launched myself into the back of the car, grunting and swearing, poking the wiper around until I finally flipped up the lock. "Woohoo!" I yelled. "Well hello there!" said my neighbour, who until now has not said boo to me, but chose the moment when I was wedged in the back of my car with my arse in the air to happen along and introduce himself. If anyone is any good at reattaching wiper blades, please let me know.

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Thank you, all you wacky people, for your interesting suggestions for new car names. After lengthy deliberation, we have christened our little red beast.

THE WINNER: Manuel (suggested by Simon)

RUNNER UP: Florence (suggested by JD)

NOT EVEN CLOSE: Purplish Viral Infection, Lady Margaret Deathstrike, Great Aunt Spagnum, Pedro the Panty Merchant.

HONORABLE MENTION FOR MOST VIGOROUS CAMPAIGNING: Screaming Silence of Your Impending Doom (repeatedly suggested by Mattay)

The winning name just clicked right away. We initally thought that the car was female, but now it's just going to be a girly kind of boy. We also like the Fawlty Towers reference, it recalls that lovely image of Basil Fawlty thrashing his broken-down Mini with a tree branch.

I've felt like taking a branch to the car myself lately, with my frustration at learning how to drive the bloody thing. But it's not the cars fault I am lousy with a manual.

My experience with the stick is pretty pathetic. I got my learner's permit the day I turned 16 way back in 1993, but nobody bothered teaching me to drive. I had one disasterous lesson with the Mothership on our farm. She kept pressing her foot down on the Phantom Brake in the passenger seat, nagging and snapping, You're in the wrong gear, you're going too fast, you're going to hit that sheep, etc. I didn't come anywhere near the bloody sheep, though the fence was rather close.

Next thing it was February 1996 and I was off to uni and needing a car to get around. But I had not had one single driving lesson since the sheep incident. So the Mothership finally conceded that it was time for me to learn. I'd been on my Learners for over two years, and now I had to learn to drive in two weeks.

The man assigned to the task was Bob from the Totally R.A.D. Driving School. It was like, totally rad! I totally forget what the R.A.D. stood for, but Bob was a rad guy. He had made a little Lego model of a clutch, which he liked to whip out every time you stalled, which in my case was quite often.

"Now this is the clutch, Shauna," he say in the hushed, awed tones that one usually reserves for some magical mystical occurence. "Now this is a bazillion-carat diamond that I dug out of my backyard with a teaspoon, Shauna." He would turn the little Lego crank and the little Lego gears would spin and he'd explained how it worked, and how my mission was to get to know the clutch. I would nod blankly and smile.

Over the next ten days he'd show me that Lego clutch a further fifty times, plus show me the wonders of reverse parallel parking, clutch control and using your mirrors. I stalled and swore, went too fast or too slow, but he was patient and spoke to me in soothing tones. "Now, go back a gear, easyyyy, easy now! Turn the corner, Shauna. Turn the corner, Shauna. Hey that rhymes! Hehehe."

The big day of the test rolled up and of course my chronic nervousness kicked in. I had thrown up my breakfast and all the mantras Bob had taught me seem to have been purged too.

I sat in Bob's Totally RAD Festiva as the RTA dude drummed his fingers on his clipboard, waiting for me to start. But my mind had gone completely blank. When you know how to drive, starting a car is something you do without thinking. But for me, with about 5 hours of driving experience and being generally loopy and uncoordinated by nature, it was hopeless.

I turned the ignition on, got into reverse, and tried to take off. No dice. I did this three times and was about to burst into tears when the guy coughed politely and said, "Have a think about what you haven't done yet."

I looked around for a good minute or two before finally realising the fucking handbrake was still on. "Ha! Haaaaa hahaaa," I whimpered as I took off the handbrake and proceeded to stall twice more. I had failed the test utterly and miserably before I'd even left the freaking RTA car park, but the bastard still made me do the rest of it. I went over the speed limit twice, I stalled again and my reverse parallel park was a dog's breakfast. I waited til I'd given Bob his Totally RAD car keys back before running into the loos and sobbing. Hehe.

I ended up going for my licence again the day before I left for uni. In that time I'd accquired The Bird, who was an automatic. I passed just fine, despite turning up the wrong street since I'd been to busy being nervous to listen to instructions properly

About two months later when my sister turned 16, Mum started teaching her to drive right away. Grrr. She says not teaching me to drive is a sad chapter in her mothering history, but at least she'd learned from her mistakes and now knew how to get things right when Rhi got her licence. What am I, the experiment child?

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We caught a bus to Goulburn at 6am last Saturday. The bus had come from Adelaide and was on its way to Sydney, so it was full of sleepy backpackers. I had a window seat but the fog was so thick that there wasn't much to look at outside. Instead we listened to the crazy guy three rows behind us.

He'd boarded the bus with us at Canberra. He had spiky brown mullet and a slightly manic grin. He lumbered up the aisle and found his seat.

"G'day!" He stuck out his hand to the guy beside him. There was a strained English-accented "Hello" in response. We hadn't even made it down Northbourne Avenue before the crazy guy launched into his life stories.

"So, September 11, mate. Can you remember where you were when it happened?" He didn't wait for an answer. "I was in Sydney at the shelter, and there was this crazy guy, you know how there's always a crazy guy. He's standing out the front there looking crazy, he's got an eye patch and everything. I go to walk past and he grabs me and he's slobbering and slurring, The world is gunna end mate, two planes just flew into the towers at New York, there's people jumping out and the worlds gone mad! Whatever, mate, I says. No it's true, I saw it on the telly! Go and look!

"I was gunna go look at the telly just to humour him, but they'd already locked the telly away for the night, they lock it away so noone flogs it during the night. Anyway, he kept going on and on about it, he had this little transistor radio and he was trying to find a station, and he was ranting about planes and burning bodies and shit.

"Anyway, he was crazy. You can never trust a bloke with an eye patch. We were gunna call the doctor and have him hauled off to the hospital. But we went to McDonalds instead. I was standing in the queue goin' Haw haw, planes flying into buildings, what a dickhead, when this huge burly guy pokes me in the back and says, Oi, it's not funny, roight? I said Ahh, fuck off!

"But then I notice they've got the telly on and they're showing that footage over and over again. Jeeeesus chroist, it's for real! I said. The big fella looked like he was fully gunna hit me, so I said Sorry mate, I had no bloody idea!"

I rolled my jacket into a ball and leaned it against the window, snuggled in and tried to sleep. But the windows were cold and slick, my jacket kept sliding down the glass and my head went with it, landing on the window frame with a thunk.

"The other day I was reading a study in Readers Digest about men and the pressures we are under today. Did you realise the pressure we're under, as men? So many boys in high schools are toppin' themselves coz they can't handle all the pressures and the expectations. It's okay for girls, you see, noone really cares what they do with their lives. They are not judged like us men are. If a boy wanted to help his mum bake a cake, he just can't, mate. Because of society. The pressure of society. You can't be a real man and bake a fucking cake."

The bus was sleepy and quiet except for the crazy guy's relentless rambling. Sunlight was starting to seep through the fog. Along the side of the road I could see spiderwebs in the trees. That's something you never notice during the day. But in the morning the light is soft and you see thousands of silvery webs, stretched out between the branches.

Across the aisle, an impossibly tall guy reading a German translation of John Grisham book, tried to stretch his legs out between the seats.

"Pythagoras, mate. Do you know about Pythagoras? He's the one that did the triangles. Do you know how he did the triangles? He was looking up at the sky one night, I think it was around 6000 B.C. He was looking up at the stars and he connected the dots in his head to make the triangles. Pretty amazing, yeah?"

I nodded off for a good twenty minutes. Soon we were near Goulburn so my sister nudged me awake.

The crazy guy was still on Pythagoras."So after the triangles, he later went on to make the Pyramids."

"Wasn't Pythagoras a Greek?" asked his bewlidered companion.

"Yeah mate, but he went over to Egypt. With his knowledge of triangles. He helped the Egyptians build their Pyramids."

He was still talking when the bus finally lurched into the service station. We looked up at the Big Merino and wondered if Pythagoras had a hand in that too.

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It was easy to name my first car. It was a Nissan Bluebird, and thanks to my reckless driving, it really flew, man. So it was THE BIRD! Then it was easy to name the second car Golden Boy, coz he was gold and there's nothing like a Seinfeld reference.

But this new one has us stumped. Perhaps I can't think of a name because I haven't formed an attachment to the car yet (possibly because I can't drive the bloody thing. It's manual and I can't drive a manual for shit, I am having to learn rather quickly).

Anyway, I've decided to hold a Name That Car Contest. I'm not sure what the prize will be. Perhaps the prize will be Golden Boy himself. Of course, you'll have to come here to get him, and give me $3000 or so. Okay, I will think of a better prize. But here is the nameless one, a 1998 Ford Festiva.

The judges (ie. my very fickle sister's) decision will be final. Enter as many times as you like! Don't be shy!

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