Day 7: The Day I Was Out of My Comfort Zone

Had a nice lie in this morning. I was due to pick up Adam Kaye from Stanmore station at 1pm to play golf, which left me enough time to find a way of getting rid of the 10ft pole in my room. I decided that the best place to take it was the local tip.

Had quite a lot of trouble trying to load it into the car, and figured out that the only way of doing it was to open the roof. It didn't help that it was about six degrees outside. So there I was, driving with one hand on the wheel, the other holding the base of the pole, which extended about 5ft from the top of the car. It was absolutely freezing driving down the A41 and within seconds I could hardly feel my face. What was really annoying though was that at 50mph, the wind turned the plastic pole into a giant didgeridoo, making the strangest noises all the way to the tip.

The tip is quite hard to find and isn't very well signposted. For future reference, it's about half way down Allum Lane. If you reach the sign advertising 'Free Manure', you've gone too far. The queue at the tip was ridiculous. There were about 10 cars in front of me, all trying to get rid of their Christmas trees. Eventually found myself in pole position. There were gigantic bins everywhere with signs telling you which one to put your waste in. Bins for metal, bins for cardboard, bins for washing machines, even bins for hardcore and rubble...but no bins for 10ft plastic poles. I looked around. Everyone seemed to know exactly what they were doing apart from me. I was completely out of my comfort zone. There didn't seem to be anyone working there who could help me. I just stood there in the middle of the tip, holding my pole upright like some sort of weird Moses of the wasteland. 

Eventually, this creature emerged from in between the bins. An old, balding, Gollum-like hunchback in a fluorescent jacket. It just looked at me blankly, pointed at the pole and uttered, 'Rigid plastics'. I turned round and managed to find the correct bin. So the pole has now found its final resting place amongst video cassettes of Beavis and Butthead and tapes of Now That's What I Call Music Volume 7.

I still had about half an hour before I was due to pick up Adam so thought it would be a good opportunity to solve another problem that's been plaguing me for the last couple of weeks...the oil in my car. I think I must've been dangerously low as the oil light has been coming on every time I turn a corner. 

Got to Elstree Hill petrol station and found myself staring at shelves and shelves of different motor oils. After Googling on my mobile for about five minutes, I finally found out which oil I needed...5W-30. The problem was that I had no idea what to do with it. I was out of my comfort zone again. I asked the cashier for some help and he told me that I had to make sure I had the right level with the dipstick.

The sequence of events then went something like this:

- Trying to work out how to open the bonnet: 5 minutes

- Locating the oil cap: 2 minutes

- Googling what a dipstick is: 3 minutes

- Locating and removing the dipstick: 3 minutes

- Trying to work out where to put the dipstick back: 4 minutes

I had no idea how much oil I was supposed to put in. I started with about a shot glass amount, put the dipstick in and removed it. Nothing on the stick at all. I put a bit more in. Again, nothing on the dipstick. I ended up pouring the entire bottle in, which was immediately followed by a mild panic attack that I'd done something wrong. So I got back in the car and drove straight to Elstree Road Garage which was a couple of minutes away. I asked the guy working there if he could kindly check to see if I've put too much oil in the tank. He told me that I've put nowhere near enough in and need at least another bottle.

Drove back to Elstree Hill petrol station and bought another bottle of oil. This time, I was more confident...too confident. Flipped the bonnet up and located the oil tank within seconds. People must've thought I was a pro. Grabbed some tissues and started unscrewing the cap of the oil tank. Shit! The cap slipped out of my hand and fell into the engine. I looked underneath the car, praying that the cap had fallen all the way through. Of course, it hadn't. I went straight into the shop and told the cashier what had happened. He came out with a torch and both of us spent a good few minutes trying to find the cap, which had wedged itself somewhere amidst all the metal. 

Suddenly, the cashier became all excited and ran off back into the shop. He emerged a few seconds later with a long, thin pole, not too dissimilar to the one I had just thrown away. After bit of wangling, the cap finally dropped down beneath the car. I had been saved. I topped up the tank with the second bottle of oil, got back in the car, and still made it in time to pick up Adam from Stanmore station. Result!