Driven round the bend

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Having always scrambled around on the last day to pay property tax, file income returns or deposit credit card bills, I was feeling particularly pleased for organising my car insurance a full month before it became due.

The insurance agent's relief too was evident, though he appeared sceptical about my motives. "If something happens to your car in the period before the new insurance becomes valid," he pleaded, "you will let me know, won't you?" Assuring him that nothing untoward was likely to happen, I stepped into my car and would have zoomed away, but for the traffic.

Caught in the jam, there was little I could do when a bus decided to make acquaintance with the left span of the car, and then veered off and disappeared altogether.

Having ensured that the idling engine was still ticking over, I ventured out to explore the worst, to find that the front passenger door had jammed.

Repairs were required, but they were hardly urgent. Besides, now that I had already paid the next premium, it made sense to wait for the new insurance to become valid before claiming compensation.

But if I had hoped to switch cars with my wife for the interim, I was in for a surprise. "I won't be caught dead driving your car," she declared, surveying the wreckage.

Unfortunately, it meant that every time we needed to go out together, she could not get into the front seat while, feeling like a chauffeur, I would take the wheel.

Even so, I swallowed my pride: car repairs are expensive, and I was darned if I wasn't going to make a full recovery from my insurance company.

Not that the going was easy. Waiting for the car in the portico of a hotel, I overheard one valet whisper to the concierge: "Now here's a strange couple. I've been seeing them come and go in the same car, but they don't sit together."

The concierge, a man of the world, winked at him and said in a world-weary voice: "These society-wallah people, they're like this most times. They'll have a fight and stop talking to each other, but still want to go out to the same parties-sharties."

I stopped going out to parties-sharties. But driving to work one day, my wife asked me to drop off her friend en route. The friend perched on the back seat, but spent the entire journey leaning forward to engage in friendly banter.

She shouldn't have. "Look at them," a motorcyclist nudged his pillion at a red light, "the driver's having a scene with his memsahib." "Do I look like a driver?" I asked my wife later in the evening, still upset from the insult. "Of course not," she comforted me, "but neither does my friend look like a memsahib."

Yesterday, deciding that enough was enough, I called my insurance agent to ask for help. "Hmm," he said surveying the damage, "it's quite a bit you'll have to pay out." "That's okay," I said, "you can get me the compensation, now that the new insurance is valid."

The agent looked at me in disbelief. "My company," he stood his ground, "cannot pay for this." "But whyever not" I protested, "that's what I've paid the premium for."

"Because," explained the agent sternly, "the accident happened in the period of your last insurance, you cannot claim it from the new insurance." "Then I'll claim it from the old insurance," I pleaded desperately.

"That," said the agent, "you cannot do, because, of course, it is no longer valid." "Is there," I wrung my hands, "no way that you can help me," "No," he said picking up his briefcase, "none at all."

I guess I'll just have to get used to looking like a driver.