ANYONE SEEN MY........?

I was reminded recently of an event from my past which I am not proud of. Forgive me reader for I have sinned and it is 3 decades since my last confession.

It all started when I put my car in for a service. The garage appeared to have done a pretty good job not that I am qualified to judge such mechanical matters. My level of knowledge about what happens under the bonnet is on a par with a dear secretary at school a few years back who would say "I know all about cars - I get in and turn the key. If it starts I drive to work, if it doesn't I walk to work".

Yet in my ignorance, I became aware of a problem which developed a few days after the service in the form of a rattle from the engine area. Having spent 10 minutes working out how to raise the bonnet because being male, I obviously won't resort to opening the handbook, I began to peer about underneath hoping that passing neighbours might be fooled into thinking I had some idea what I was doing.

If you are easily impressed, I may go up in your esteem if I reveal that not only did I locate the problem but I also fixed it - permanently. However, this inflated esteem which you have bestowed on me will quickly burst when I add the detail that the rattle was caused by a mechanic at the garage having left a screwdriver on top of what I'm guessing was the battery. This was not just any old screwdriver but a magnetic and multi-headed screwdriver which I sort of forgot to return to them. *Blushes with shame.

The story which brought this sad event back to mind was a report of surgical procedures in Scotland which reveals that it is quite common for surgeons to leave their tools in patients and then sew them back up again. Apparently swabs, needles, drill bits and even forceps have walked out of the hospital inside post-operative patients' bodies!

So it is very clear to me that the forgetful car mechanic has since had a change of profession and now works as a surgeon somewhere near Glasgow.