Brain surgery

I had a bad start to the day. The computer system wouldn’t turn on. Pressed all the buttons, jiggled all the cables, checked all the fuses. Nothing.

Blast. Just as the busy period began. Drove to the workshop out at Fyshwick and the mechanic pressed all the buttons, jiggled all the cables, checked all the fuses, popped his head under the dashboard. “Fifty dollar fee for soiling the cab,” I told him. “Wires are frayed,” he said, and so they were.

“You’ll have to take it out to the electricians,” he said, so off I went to Premier Instruments in Dickson, where the mechanic pressed all the buttons, jiggled all the cables, checked all the fuses. “The wires are frayed,” I said, pointing out the place.

“So they are,” he said, pulled down the back seat and checked the computer boxes tucked away there. “Not good. I think that’s cooked the brain. You’ll have to take it to the base.”

Back to the taxi company base in Fyshwick, steering my empty way through the streams of cabs, all of them full of passengers.

The technician didn’t bother with all the jiggling. “Think we’ve worked out what happened,” he said. Apparently the software had been updated remotely and it had gone to the wrong cabs. Logging out forced a software update, so after my day driver signed out, the system loaded an update, failed and went to sleep.

He pulled down the back seat, unscrewed the brain box, installed a fresh one, and got me on the air again. Off I went, just as another cabbie came in to have his brain replaced.