Motormouth: My car only accommodates one significant other as my closest co-driver on the road of life

The driver has to ride along with his better half who is attached, in more ways than one, to the front passenger seat. 

After all, he specified this nice new "accessory" and paid the price, so he has to install it, warts and all. The relationship on the road and off it might get complicated if and when the next nicer "accessory" comes along, but that’s another story.

When I was still a schoolboy reading/dreaming about cars, BGR (boy girl relationship) was a mystery subject. To me, it was like Humanities, but more human, and like Physics, but more physical. And perhaps most interestingly, BGR was like Chemistry, but much deeper. 

After finishing my school daze and starting work, BGR was still as clear as mud to me. Then I saw the light at the end of the tunnel. It turned out to be the weak light from the pair of halogen headlamps on my first car.

It was a humble hatchback, with styling as square as my sense of style, but it gave me freedom from the vagaries of public transport. It also granted vehicular access to a young woman’s heart, albeit on a winding road full of left, right, and wrong turns. 

My biggest mistake was assuming that any car in any condition could turbocharge my love life in the 1990s. 

I quickly found out that my naturally-aspirated ride would leave me unnaturally exasperated with my inability to pick up amazing ah lians in the heartlands. 

They loved Evos and GT-Rs, piloted by PMABs (post-modern ah bengs). They liked BMWs and GTIs, ideally driven by successful ah bengs who were modelled after Christopher Lee rather than Mark Lee. 

I think the only NA car at the time which could impress the impressionable girls was a Honda Type R. 

Rightly or wrongly, chicks and cars are meant to go together. They belong to each other like rubber and rim, lock and key, adrenaline and gasoline. 

The pairing is complete when random girl gets upgraded to current girlfriend, who then automatically stakes her claim on the guy’s cockpit. 

The classic pack-of-tissue-paper technique won’t work, because the freshly-minted boyfriend will instinctively use it to wipe fresh bird shit off his precious paintwork. 

Therefore, the girlfriend hangs her for-the-car cardigan on the headrest, or puts her road-ready sunglasses in the doorbin, or places a pair of slippers from her 30-pair collection in the footwell, or parks one of her favourite plush toys in the centre console - possibly doing all four if the guy is a keeper.  

Leaving spare sanitary pads in the glovebox might be too much, though. 

Half the clutter in his car belongs to her, but luckily they belong to each other.

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