If a tree falls on a Festiva, does anybody care?

by Enrico Ventura

April 23, 2008

I GUESS the everyday Perth motorist drives to work with negligible thoughts of not driving home at all.

That’s me, on Monday April 21, until a freak event reshuffles my thoughts.

About 2.30pm, the lunch crowd at Subway West Perth dissipates. I walk away from serving a customer just as my mobile phone rings, from a number unfamiliar to me. With more than 1000 numbers in my phone memory, that’s not a common occurrence.

“Good morning, is that Mr Ventura, this is the Perth Police,” the faceless voice says.

“That would be me,” I reply, my mind failing to pinpoint any likely form of felony I may have engaged in.  

“Could I please ask where you are right now sir?”

“Lord, forgive me for all the prank calls I’ve made in my life,” I think a second.

“We’re just where you parked your car sir, and I’m sorry to inform you that a tree has fallen on your car.”

At this point, my mind launches into an unseen war of possibilities between prank and truth.

“I’m coming down now,” I reply, half expecting to see some mates having a ‘rolling on the floor laughing’ (ROFL) moment on my car’s hood. However, the only thing I find when I arrive in Ventnor Avenue is a fallen tree trunk weighing down my car hood.

Alongside empty Red Bull cans, old newspapers and a possible cockroach, my car dubbed by mates as ‘the ladybug’  - houses my electric guitar, amplifier and effects rack. These, in total, cost more than my squashed ’95 Ford Festiva.

With the tree on a suicide mission, I was really thankful that that all my gear was salvageable, and more so that I was not in the car.

A Perth City Council ranger tells me the council had only checked the trees three weeks ago and they all seemed fine then.

I’m living testament of this contradiction, and the ladybug a dead testament.   

With eyes hidden behind orange tinted sunglasses, I look around am surprised how many people actually carry digital cameras, with flash after flash momentarily lighting up the street.

Two hours later, the tree is reduced to a truckload of woodchips, while the ladybug finds herself towed to an RAC yard in Bayswater to inevitably await writing off.

While I am likely to get an insurance payoff, having not opted for a policy with car rental included, I have an immediate transport problem.

The following day I call the council ranger - seeing as the tree did belong to the City of Perth - for some vehicular aid over the next few weeks before the insurance claims pulls through, but to no avail.

Two days later in the West Australian’s Inside Cover, I learn from their source that City of Perth “parking Nazis” were actually considering zapping my car with ticket, even as the tree lay across its hood.

I guess that’s why we all need a best friend who will pick you up when you find a part of yourself ‘crushed’. Also, one, thankfully, who has a spare car.

Much like a tree falling across your car, friends like this don’t come around every day.