Someone tried to kill us - probably a Frenchman
Alright, it's not entirely on-topic but I'm posting it anyway.

It wasn't the best of starts to a holiday. We had a flat tyre on the trailer within view of the ferry (this was pre-channel tunnel days) from Dover. We got the next one, got over the channel, and the same thing happened again, just the other tyre on the trailer.

My old man, being a (genuinely) smart fellow, swiftly deduced that the trailer was overloaded, and took most of its contents and put it in the back with me. Ho-hum.

The rest of the holiday went OK. Except for one unfortunate incident.

We were driving on a French motorway in the middle of nowhere in heavy rain, when there was a BANG!!! and the car veered violently to the right, with a BOOOM, BOOOM, sound, until we came to a halt. Until then (I was about 12, I think), I had never heard my Dad say "Shit" before. He said it more than a few times at that moment.

Frankly, we were lucky to be alive.

He got out and had a look. Nothing evident.

He started the car again, and there was the Boom, boom, sound again. Odd.

He had another look.

Ah - that's the problem. A wheel was hanging off the back axle by two bolts. Not good.

Eventually we were rescued by a kindly English mechanic who happened to be on the same stretch of road as us, and who took us to a garage.

It turned out that some bastard had taken a couple of the screws holding a wheel to the back axle and replaced the hub cap, so that we would not know.

Someone had tried to kill us.

Other than that, we had a great time...
( Parmesan Quality b4 Quantity, Sat 4 Aug 2007, 0:06, Reply)