There are many things more worthy of discussion, no doubt, than matters pertaining to the ups and downs of a certain individual's BMW motor car.
Global warming, world poverty, the war in Iraq, the plight of the endangered dung beetle, tonight's match against Switzerland, the price of a pint, or the pros and cons of retaining the Groceries Order are only some items that immediately spring to mind.
But this is not Dung Beetle Weekly, Time Magazine or even a Department of Enterprise Trade and Employment memo, so today we are going to discuss the disappearance of a number of wheel centres (complete with BMW emblem) from the middle of my wheels, outside my house and my efforts to replace same.
Now, mathematics must not have been the strong point of whatever swamp creature got it into his thick skull (and it probably was the male of the species, let's face it) to whip two of the four wheel centres that are so proudly displayed on my 16" alloys.
So there we were, pride half-dented and driving a car feeling a little aesthetically lopsided, a veritable supermodel wearing clinic glasses, a swan with no feathers.
There was only one answer to the problem. E-Bay. Long gone are the days of phoning up the local garage to "come take a look" or even heading down to the nearest scrap yard for a rummage in the piles of discarded metal. So, having typed in the simple search of "BMW wheel centres", I was presented with a number of seemingly attractive options.
There were the €30 ones, the €40 ones, or the €10 ones (for four wheel centres). Having thought very briefly about it we decided to opt for the "Buy it Now" option and take the €10 version.
Great stuff, just punch in the credit card number and in a couple of days Betsie will be looking right as rain again. And so we whipped out the plastic and proceeded to hand over £6.99 (€10) for the BMW "decals" and a further £3.99 (€5.80) for "shipping" to some gentleman in Britain. He promised the world, but what we got was more like a one-way ticket to Uranus.
We thought no more about the purchase until one morning about five weeks later, I noticed a small family of starlings beginning to build a nest in the hole in the centre of my car's wheel, the hole left by the missing wheel centre. In the other, some thistle seeds had landed and were beginning to grow in the dirt that had gathered in the absence of the missing decorations. It was time for action.
So, in what was the modern-day equivalent of calling around to a shop with your receipt and a mouth full of angry accusation, I put pixel to screen and fired off a snotty e-mail to my BMW wheel centre eBay seller: "You have taken payment, but I have not received the product," I said. No answer.
About two weeks later a suspicious envelope arrived with a large notice on the back to say the sender had failed to put the correct number of stamps on it for the postal journey from Britain to the office of The Irish Times in Dublin city centre. Inside the envelope I found four BMW "decals", no note, no receipt, no "Sorry 'baht the delay mate", no "Enjoy your purchase, please come again". Nothing.
"Is this it?" I asked myself, racing to the nearest copy of the Collins English dictionary to discover the true meaning of what I had bought. "Decal: A picture or design transferred by decalcomania or a decorative sticker". I had received the latter.
If I had stuck these things on my headboard they'd be on the ground after a week, so I couldn't really have seen them hurtling 120km/h down the M1 in driving rain or snow.
OK, OK, I hear you - I should have known, you get what you pay for, but I paid €10 for four stickers and €5.80 for "shipping".
Now, I hadn't expected the QE2 to sail up the Liffey and have Kate Winslet present the damn things to me on a gold-plated tray with velvet trim. No, a plain old ordinary envelope with an adequate number of stamps would have sufficed.
"What would you like me to do about it?", my decals trader responded to another more snotty missive. "I'd like you to come over here and say that and while you're at it I wouldn't mind reversing over you with my centre-free wheels", is what I thought.
But like the fiercest Jack Russell terrier, barking through the glass of a safely locked car, I instead replied: "I will take a refund for the money I paid for 'shipping' thank you very much, Sir."
But no, apparently I knew the postage amount before I made the purchase so it was my own fault for being uppity.
After four e-mails, I did get an apology and a promise of a refund. Your correspondent declined the offer, however, hotfooted it to the nearest BMW dealership, considering €16 a small price to pay for learning a valuable lesson. The online purchase of a Mercedes estate car for £1,000 is now off the agenda. Buying online is fine for books, but it pays to be able to do a bit of tyre kicking before you hand over the hard-earned cash.
