Rita Massey Ferguson

Rita quickly became the third person in our mock marriage and, like Princess Di, I have at times felt things to be a bit crowded. And it’s not just the crowding that makes me snappy. Rita is a VERY EXPENSIVE MISTRESS TO RUN.

Rita Massey Ferguson came from Trade Me, sight unseen, no test drive, just a reasonably sized adoption fee. She was a birthday present for Mr Scott. I called her a mudguard from the start — all shiny on the outside and shitty underneath. She showed up on the back of a truck like an old tramp making one final effort with a push-up bra and a corset. Once you started to strip her down she quickly fell to bits, leaked on the floor then refused to get on with the job.

She ran hot, she ran cold but most often she only coughed and crawled. As a mistress she is a failure, as a tractor she is far more disappointing.

She is demanding of time and money. Rita parts have been carted around the country, stinking out the car with their fumes and emissions. All sorts of men have tinkered with her bits into the wee hours and now and again she has had the good grace to actually perform the duties for which she was purchased … tow the boat (Stacey) along to the boat ramp and deposit Stacey into the sea. It’s quite simple, Rita, most tractors can do it.

Rita’s most recent surgery involved her petrol tank, her bladder if you like, which has now had a complete dust and clean that should cure an irritating cystitis-leak. And Christmas really did come early for Rita when she got a couple of new brackets and a tricky switch arrangement which would stop her from feeling too tired to tow.

The old bint has now had more cosmetic surgery than the Bride of Wildenstein so if Rita starts complaining about the chrome flaking around her shiny parts, she’ll be back on Trade Me faster than you can say “two-botox-with-a-cosmetic-peel”.