Eighteen months into my car injury battle with The Slobs, I slump over my kitchen table and throw my head into my hands. Through bitter tears, I email the ‘customer experience’ people at Aviva the following cri de coeur: ‘Right, that’s it. It’s official. I can’t take any more. I can no longer fight this Kafkaesque bureaucracy.
‘Nearly two years this has been going on and yet again I am about to be screwed for more money than I owe for my car insurance. The phoneline is a ten minute wait and I’m being played mindless pop music…’
‘Sweet about me, nothing sweet about me.’ That was the annoying tune they played. This is despite the fact that I selected two for classical. The recorded voice said that because the wait was ten minutes ‘we thought you might like to choose the music you listen to. We have put a selection together for you. For some Motown soul, press one…’ I really wasn’t in a soulful mood.
‘For classical pieces, press two…’ Pieces. Ugh. Whatever.
‘If you like jazz and swing, press three…’ I bet I don’t like Aviva’s idea of jazz and swing.
‘Or for pop and chart tunes just press four.’ This was clearly going to be the worst option, so in a state of ambivalence so severe it must have been close to how sociopaths feel when they split off from their emotions in order to commit crimes, I pressed two, expecting to be assaulted by an up tempo version of Pachelbel’s ‘Canon’.
‘Sweet about me, nothing sweet about me.’
This was just the latest in a string of broken promises. The thing that had pushed me to the brink was a letter from an Aviva executive saying that as my case had been going on for so long, the underwriters had agreed to restore my no-claims bonus.
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