Gravity

Picture it Sicily 1916, so we are in-between cars at the moment with work but luckily we have been able to use the university's pool vehicles. My boss returns with the car all ready for our finance assistant to do the banking. As he knew that the car would be used immediately or near enough, he parked it on the street directly below our offices of which there are 3 car parks. As most know company cars have automatic transmission, except for this one which was the uni ute.

Upon announcement that she was off to do the banking and I needed to go that way, I decided to hitch a ride. This was a lucky decision as the car, as previously stated was a manual and our finance assistant only had her automatic licence. So with the keys handed to me we set off on our outing.

Walking out of the office I double check the location of the vehicle with the finance assistant. Ensuring me that the car was parked out on the street we head that way. When half way down the stairs, which gives you a full view of the street and the 3 car parks, I see no parked cars.

So I triple checked as we have 3 other car parks at the rear of the adjourning building, perhaps it was parked there. So we proceeded to this location, when on our travels, I question what kind of vehicle we have. Instructed it was the university ute, I lost it. You see, in my line of sight was this ute that was now parked up the gutter resting in front of a concrete retaining wall.

We both ran over to inspect the vehicle. Could it be that it was the vehicle we had booked? Well with the university logo on the side of it and the keys in my hand unlocking the door, it was without a doubt, the car we had booked that my boss had just returned.

Laughing so hard now, we had to share our story. So we go back to the office. It’s a small team that we work with so word quickly spread among the 3 remaining staff. Everyone now laughing, except for my boss who had a look of puzzlement on his face as the level of volume increased as each staff member walked passed his office and looked at him. All staff had now left the building to get a better look, when I had to interrupt a meeting that my boss was having, in fact it was a job interview, to inform him of his slight oversight. You see, when you are used to driving an automatic you need to understand that they have different requirements to a manual when parking a vehicle on a hill. My manager ran to the crash site and drove the car out of the gutter as the rest of us couldn’t see from tears of laughter. Thankfully for him, the car only got 50 metres which was fortunate as the street is 200 metres long and at the bottom of it, is a creek (Rapid Creek) where no one would have found the car.

This is Kim Dundee reporting from the Territory

Post Script - there was no visable damage to the car.