Days are a bit like carnival rides. There are big, gently looping ferris wheels of days and then those when it seems like you’ve unwittingly purchased a non-transferable ticket to spend 24 hours on the Zipper. It should have been obvious it was going to be the latter when I pulled off the road to view a text message.
It was from Telstra. They wanted to tell me about options to avoid texting and driving.
Getting back onto the road I travelled a couple of kilometres before being pulled over for a random breath test.
I puffed into the little straw and aced the test, but the policeman still asked me to get out of the car.
He then pointed out that my front tyres were balding. “You might also want to check your oil — the engine sounds a bit tappety,” the officer said.
On the road again, the petrol gauge started blinking so I stopped at the next petrol station and filled up.
About one kilometre from the station I realised the third finger of my left hand felt strangely naked.
I wheeled round and hot-footed it back to the petrol station. A P-plater now occupied bowser four and was carefully washing the windows of his pride and joy.
I looked down. There, about two steps from where he was standing splashing water about and millimetres from a grate, was my engagement ring.
I fell to my knees in front of the astonished young man, clutching my recovered ring to my chest like Frodo Baggins on the edge of Mount Doom . . . only I clearly was not invisible.
“God, lady,” he said, “I don’t even know you.”
