I recently stumbled across this article in a magazine, written by comedian Jean Kittson. I searched for it everywhere online so that I could share it with you, but failing that, I have now retyped it and hope you'll enjoy it as much as I did. Once you've read it, you'll find yourself asking if your own relationship is like a polished, luxurious car or is it more like a trusty old banger?Choosing a partner is like picking a car: you have to know whether you want a reliable old banger or a temperamental trophy.
If you expect yours to be a Rolls-Royce relationship, you’re expecting it to be sleek and powerful and purring along – a smooth, undulating ride in which the climate is always comfortable and life is muffled by luxury. There may even be someone else at the wheel. (More likely the PA than the chauffeur.) Eventually, you will discover that this relationship is expensive to run, needs proper garaging, (if not a custom-made dust sheet) and regular servicing by experts. You don’t take this relationship into the rough. If you get a little bored, you can’t add mag wheels and fats on the back.
The parents of a childhood friend had a Rolls-Royce relationship. I thought it was bloody brilliant. There were always even-tempered and well-mannered with each other and they called each other ‘darling’ when asking to be passed the burgundy. Her father never once farted at the dinner table and her mother never once threw a shoe at him because of it. How unlike my own battered Wolseley experience (my mother often brought several pairs of shoes to the table). Years later my friend told me that to keep this relationship in showroom condition, her parents never once expressed their real emotions. Not to each other, not to the kids, not to themselves. They didn’t live in a relationship, they inhabited one.
Then you’ve got the Lamborghini: sexy, exciting, fun – other people will feel a twinge of envy and wish their prissy Prius of a relationship could be recalled. But this is a risky, highly temperamental union. It needs to be warmed up properly before you can take it for a spin; it demands constant, careful handling, carbies tweaked and nipples greased. Even then, you can blow a head just taking off at the lights. It is also a two-seater relationship – when the thrill wears off, there’s not a lot of reason to keep it. And if it’s not going flat out, what’s the point? This relationship either has a high-speed bingle or breaks down so often that one of you takes up with a truckie while hitching home.
Truth is, most of the best relationships can run like an indestructible old Holden – sounds like a lawnmower, smells like an old jockstrap, a bit of a rough ride – but it can handle anything and it doesn’t stop when bits fall off. This is a relationship with enough room for kids and pets and bikes and stuff picked up from the nature strip. You can clip the fence, hit the gutter, do a flat-out school run from a cold standing start. This is a relationship with the most vital component; a destination. And this is the ride worth having.
Sure, you’ll have to check the oil, fiddle with the carbies and test the plugs with your tongue, but you will do it together. It’s the sort of relationship most of our parents had: durable, dated and with the scrapes and touch-ups of a long journey. My dad was a mechanic and my mum was a good driver, so theirs weathered more rough trips than most, both in analogy and in reality. But if life is a rallycross, this is the sort of rally team you need. One navigating, one steering. And both taking turns to bicker about directions. It works!
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