The Lions might have a thing for Minis, but the monkeys destroyed my car.
I haven't seen my sister for ages, as she lives in Australia. She decided to grace me with her presence, and hence I decided to take her out for some fun.
Shock! Horror! What kind of fun stuff can you show someone in Liverpool? After we did the Beatles Museum and the Tate modern, we kinda sorta ran out of ideas, until I remembered the fact that there is a safari park only a few miles up the road, in Knowsley.
So we did - Me and my sister piled up into the Mini (yes, the good old 1988 Austin Mini City 998cc Automatic) and headed for Knowsley. Save a few suspicious sounds from the engine as we were doing 85 down the M62 (not too strange - 85 is 85 and a mini is a mini, after all), the trip was eventless.
Well there, we decided to start the tour through the safari park. Over the cattle-grids, past the emus and the gnus, and into the deep Knowsley jungle. We snail-paced our way past the Tiger fence, and my sister was hanging out of the window in an effort to affix the tigers to the digital equivalent of reasonably fast film.
When we made it into the Lions area of the safari park, I rolled my window down a little. Y'see, my mini has a penchant for overheating. In an effort to counter the overheating of the engine, I have to put my heating on full blast, along with the ventilation system. in order not to die of a heat stroke, the open window is a nice way to cool the inside of the car.
Just as I roll my window down, the safari attendant starts his Landrover in the distance, and drives towards us with great speed. So I roll my window up, in an effort not to get told off. He pulls his Landy to a quick stop just next to my mini, and gestures for me to roll my window down. So I do.
"Hey, I just have to advice you that some of the cats have a bit of a thing for minis, so you'd better get in the middle lane and keep moving. I'll be right behind you in case something happens"
A bit shook, and very humoured, I get in the middle lane and drive past the lions and out of the lion part of the park.
Ten minutes later, we are in the Monkey pen. Being brave (and driving a car that is 15 years old, figuring they couldn't do any real damage), we decide to skip on the "car-friendly" route, and drive through the monkey pen.
The previous time I was in the park, only one monkey climbed on the car, and then only briefly. But it seems that monkeys like Minis far better than Fiestas, and so before we knew it, we had no less than five monkeys swinging from the car.
One of them slid off the front on the first attempt, so tried again and decided to grab a hold of my windshield wiper, bending it out of shape. Another one decided that my aerial would be good food, and started chewing on the top of it. A third one started grabbing on to the gutter along the top of my (white with a red-star) roof and swinging his way all the way around the vehicle.
All fun and games, and awfully cute, untill things started to break. One of the monkeys was jumping up and down on my side mirror, resulting in it breaking clean off, and another broke of a piece of the roof gutter. A third monkey managed to break and bite off a piece off the antenna, and a snapping sound at the rear of the car didn't promise that much good either.
My sister and me, both a bit worried about the general state of the car, and about the monkeys who seemed hellbent on breaking off every loose part on the car, decided to try and get out of there.
Four minutes out of the monkey pen, a couple in an Audi pulls up next to us, and - between teary laughing sounds - informs me that the little bastards had broken my numberplate on the back of the car straight off. My registration number ends with the letters "EAT", but I never thought they would take it quite that literally.
Those damn monkeys.
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