Brian Carless, Contributor

MY WIFE and I decided that we would spend our fourth wedding anniversary at Negril Escape, and oh, what a 'little cottage' it was!

I spent $2,800 for 51.77 litres of good ole 87octane - and not the E10 fuel - and headed on out.

Took the road as a bird in flight and brought 'Mitsy' (my car) up to cruising speed of 110km/h on the toll road where I stretched out the ole filly and not a murmur from her. The temp gauge was good, everything was fine, paid a toll of $230 (Lawd, thank God I don't drive that way every day).

Made it to Clarendon Park, up the hill, Mitsy had no problems.

Went up the roast yam hill and Winston Jones bypass. Mitsy not as fast as them King Fish, but she got us up there, not a ping from the engine.

The journey wasn't too bad until we hit a traffic snarl in Santa Cruz . It 'ruff' on the Friday boy. Onward we went, night had fallen, but we drove on. Never driven to that section of the island before so this is all new territory for me and Mitsy, she being the other woman in my life.

Problems developed

However, when I reached Negril trouble came upon me; Murphy's Law number one hit me - anything that can go wrong will.

The battery light lit up the dashboard like the firetruck flasher. This wasn't a good sign after I spent so much on the water pump repair.

When the light appeared, my first remark was from Dora the explorer character Swiper, 'oh man', but I did not worry.

Knowing Mitsy, she wouldn't take me this far to let me down, I reached the hotel in three hours 46 miutes and covered a distance of 142 miles (227km), and didn't even reach tank.

Woke up the next morning to see what had gone wrong. The car started good with no problem, but when I revved the engine the light faded and went out, so I said all I had to do was keep the revs up.

No Doc Ainsley to help me here, but I wasn't about to let this problem spoil my weekend.

I left Negril on Sunday, December 14 to head home. I drove with no radio playing, without using the horn or even the indicator, and made it up back in three hours 13 minutes.

Needed electrician

Not bad wonder if Hollywood Gore could test me. Visited Doc Ainsley, who told me that I needed an electrician to sort me out. That's like calling 'Mutty' Perkins with a problem for him to tell me put it in writing and call a lawyer.

I went in search of an electrician and didn't had to go too far.

I went to Passage Fort Drive, Spencer's Auto Electric Repairs. The man said it was going to cost me $1,500 for labour, but I didn't know what the parts would cost me.

The problem was that the regulator went bad and the car wasn't charging at idle. So far so good. Lucky for me, he had a Mitsubishi alternator and swapped out some parts, fit it up and I was good again. The parts set me back another $1,500.

The reading on the battery tester was 11 point something and the reading after the repair was 13.2 volts, so I was good again.

The repair time took only two hours. The ole girl was back on the road again.

Apart from having a good weekend, I got 390 miles from a 16-gallon tank of gas - my best ever.

My next goal is try and get 400 miles and that would work out to be 25 mpg round town. That would be like Star Trek's mission - to go where I have never gone before. But like Murphy's Law number two, nothing's as easy as it looks.