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Charade in Rust.

The Roads and Traffic Authority (RTA) is the government department that collects motor vehicle registration fees (as in yet another tax). Whilst I was at their office a farmer made mention that he had a Model A which hadn’t recently been used. It wasn’t any value to him; would I like it? Well yes, of course I said, but I really didn’t because I have sufficient already. Not only did I not need it I don’t have a heap of money; restoration of Model A’s has exhausted most of that.

I called my friend Dave who lives about 100 miles away and yes, he’d like it. We met the farmer in town at his house and he and I drove to his farm and Dave followed, towing a trailer. Money had never been mentioned but now the seller started to talk about just that. What originally seemed like a gratis deal had changed to a commercial deal with escalating value.

The moment I saw it I knew it wasn’t an A but couldn’t identify it. Dave did. A Buick about a 1920 model. It had been consumed by corrosion and was last used to drive a saw bench. Its value was absolutely nought. Even if Dave collected Buicks the value would remain nought.
I felt silly but my part had simply been charitable as I wasn’t taking any reward.
This Buick could have served only one purpose should Dave had taken it. An anchor for a tinny in a dam not far from Dave’s house.