chain reaction

Well, the car windscreen was 'fixed' a couple of days ago.

It's a good example of a chain reaction, and at the moment I think I'm the fissionable material.

Let's recap.

A tiny ping as something hit the windscreen.

Unaided, by the next day it had become a 15 cm split across the glass.

Call the fixers last Friday, who arrive with the glass on Tuesday.

Fixed but please don't drive it for an hour.

It was already late and I didn't even drive it the next day.

Eventually, on Thursday I start it up and there's a selection of bing bong sounds from the dashboard.

A range of warning messages scroll past:

"Distronic Plus disabled"
"Parktronic Plus disabled"
"ESP disabled" (seriously!)
"Read Owners Manual for more information"

And a few more that I can't even remember. I have never seen so many warnings. I didn't even know I could have so many systems go wrong at once. I'm not sure how Scotty and Captain Kirk could have coped.

Even the little steaming coffee cup symbol stopped displaying. How will I know when I'm thirsty?

Call the glass fixers to advise them that something is amiss after their visit.

"We'll call you back from the depot in a couple of hours"

Call the car dealership.

Glum sounds as I'm told I will need to take it in to be sorted out and there isn't a simple reset button to fix it all.

When the glass fitters eventually called back, they did say this kind of thing has happened before. They recognised the symptoms and said it was probably caused by a wire being cut through in error.

The car goes into the dealer tomorrow. That's a week since the stone hit the glass and I feel as if I'm still going backwards. The man from the glass fitters has said he'll pay the bill.

There's a lesson here somewhere about engineering complexity. The glass on my car is obviously too clever for its own good. And I've been without a car for a week.