After the eating and revelry, Christmas turned distinctly flat for some folk in Angus.
They cannot even be called the unfortunate few, because dozens of individuals, couples and families were affected by morons who went on a tyre-slashing spree in the streets of Montrose.
The sight of a flat always leaves you instantly deflated, but you take it on the chin as part of motoring life (and grudgingly accept that fate, and the state of our roads, will decree that a puncture will be like the proverbial London bus – none for a while and then three in quick succession).
But it’s a different story when you come out to two, three or even four flat tyres because someone with a screwdriver or blade has tried to play the big man in some misguided show of machismo.
Quite apart from the enormous hassle and the potential chaos it can cause for family transport arrangements, there is the obvious hit to the pocket. Two days after Christmas couldn’t be a worse time.
Private CCTV – and gravity of what they had done hitting home – probably helped the police, and since it was the second such incident in the town in less than a fortnight there were a lot of people keen to see those responsible brought to justice.
Many also seemed to support the idea of, shall we say, more traditional punishment – a well-aimed size 9 to the derriere was suggested by more than one victim I spoke to.
It’s mindless, costly and infuriating, but reminds me of an incident many years ago, coincidentally in Montrose and involving an aerial and wiper blades being trashed on my car.
It wasn’t even my own vehicle so the company dealt with it, but I was still angry enough to vent my spleen in the local that night – shortly before I fell out in grand fashion over a fellow drinker’s assertion that we were all young once and had probably all done that sort of thing.
If that view still pervades then good luck to the Montrose car ownersclinging to the hope that the parents of the young louts might make them cough up for the damage.
But think on this.
It takes a good bit of bravado, a fair force and a very sharp object to puncture a car tyre.
So if someone’s walking the streets with such an implement in their pocket and is so quick to use it, let’s hope for everyone’s sake that they are not challenged by a car owner looking to deliver that finely place boot up the behind.
