ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact

Close to half of Michael Stimpson’s monthly wage is now set to be carved off by the bank after the sprightly 19-year-old apprentice signed a car loan this afternoon.

The local apprentice cabinet maker borrowed close to three-quarters of his annual wage at a predatory 12% interest – but if you ask him, that’s just fine.

He says a recent pay rise spurred him onto purchasing the car of his dreams.

“It’s a 2005 Proton Jumbuck,” he said.

“You might laugh. But it’s a sleeper. The previous owner replaced that wound-up rubber band under the bonnet with an engine out of a ’08 WRX. He couldn’t afford to get the gearbox changed, however. It’s got me fucked how he got it all to fit together but anyway, it goes like a shower of shit,”

“He told me to change the gearbox in it soon. He reckons the gear teeth on the stock Proton automatic are weaker than Burt Newtown’s veneers. Plus the extra weight of the engine up front makes it understeer like a hovercraft. I’m happy with it though.”

The terms of his car loan have horrified his boss, though, who feels partly to blame for it, he says.

Speaking briefly to our reporter, Wilson Weedy from Weedy Cabinets said he told his young fella to buy a car for work – he just didn’t expect this.

“I told him to get a car, thinking he’d come back with a nice AU Falcon ute with 200 on it, you know?”

“Instead, he comes back with a Malaysian billycart weighing about a tonne with 250 up the front. He’ll kill himself by Friday – and it’ll be all my fault!”

“What is it with young people these days? Why are they so useless?”

More to come.

