Imagine the circumstances...

... under which, if you're a man, you might say to your girlfriend: "I wish you'd nag me more".

You can't? Well, it goes a little something like this.

You have a car. It's a Mercedes A Class, which you bought because it looked cute. It is generally very reliable, but if anything ever goes wrong with it you have to take it to the Mercedes garage, which is a) miles away and b) stunningly, breathtakingly expensive.

One of the main headlight bulbs goes. Several of the darkest weeks of the year go by, during which your girlfriend points out on a regular basis that the headlight has gone and that not to replace it is a) unsafe and b) illegal. She is particularly concerned that you do not try and do it yourself just before setting off on a long motorway drive on Boxing Day.

The manual says something like: if you insist you can try and do this yourself, but it's jolly difficult and we recommend that you take it to a Mercedes Benz dealership and pay through the nose for someone else to do it.

You decide to do it yourself. (You have, in fairness, done it yourself before.) You try, but it's quite dark and you get stuck trying to get the hatch off from inside the wheel arch. Days pass, and then it is Christmas Eve. Your girlfriend remarks several times over the morning that this is the last day that businesses are open before Boxing Day, and eventually gets her fingerless gloves on and says 'please can we do it now?'

[half an hour of crawling round on the pavement and swearing later]

The bulb you need is the only one that is missing from the spare bulb kit you bought from Halfords last time you needed a spare bulb.

You get on your bike and go to buy more from an auto spares shop. You come back. They don't work.

[quarter of an hour of being Really Pissed Off]

At 1.03 pm you ring the Mercedes garage. They shut at 1, because it's Christmas Eve.

Then you say to your girlfriend: I wish you'd nag me more.

She promises to try harder.

joella