I’ve never agreed with people who suggest that, past a certain age, people should automatically be disqualified from driving.

What should happen is re-testing and, if they can’t manage an automatic car wash, they should have their license and breathing privileges revoked.

Today, I witnessed the truly stupid in all it’s monumentally asstardish glory.

An elderly woman, we shall call her Mabel, for ease of reference, attempted to use the automatic car wash at the local petrol station.

What follows is Mabel’s Guide to the Auto Carwash:

1 ) Drive forwards toward the carwash

2 ) Reverse a few feet

3 ) Drive forwards again, into the same spot you previously occupied

4 ) Reverse a few feet

5 ) Drive forward, aligning your wheels with a metal rail which has nothing whatsoever to do with the direction you are meant to be headed in

6 ) Smash into a barrier, removing your driver side wing mirror

7 ) Reverse a few feet

8 ) Exit the vehicle, retrieve your mirror, laugh nervously and re-enter the vehicle

9 ) Reverse a few feet

10 ) Smash into the car behind because you’d forgotten that you had ALREADY reversed a few feet

11 ) Exit the vehicle, apologise for the dint, laugh nervously and re-enter the vehicle

12 ) Appear oblivious to angry driver behind who would still like your insurance details, thank you so very bloody much

13 ) Drive forward, correctly aligning yourself to enter the car wash

14 ) Insert token

15 ) Mash buttons with palm, whilst mumbling about “newfangled this” and “back in the day that”

16 ) Exit the vehicle, enter the station and demand help

17 ) Return to the carwash, attendant in tow, complaining that a bucket of water and an old cloth “were always good enough when I were younger”

18 ) Listen as it is explained to you that entering the token then attempting to select every available wash cycle at once will, not surprisingly, fail to result in the quality car wash that you were hoping for.

19 ) Apologise, laugh nervously, re-enter the vehicle

20 ) Watch as attendant inserts token for you and presses button for “Wash ‘N’ Wax”

21 ) Drive forwards into car wash, wondering why attendant and everyone in massive queue which has formed behind you are shaking their heads and yelling

22 ) Scream in terror as the car fills with water, due to the open window which you NOW realise that everyone was trying to warn you about

23 ) Drown

24 ) Corpse wax

We gave our statements and left as they were loading
Mabel’s shiny cadaver into the meat wagon.