The mouse had stopped working again. This was the third time in a week and Ellie knew it was stupid. Manically she leapt up to the wardrobe to grab the Maltesers box containing the multimeter and set about ripping the back off the bloody thing to test the batteries, 0.2 and 0.95 volts. Pathetic. Knowing it was ridiculous she canned the 0.2 and grabbed one of the (finally) remaining 4 from her dead/half-used box and tested each end of the stack. 1.24V each, one of which would do fine with the 0.95. The worst thing was she knew that the unbalanced batteries were already causing leaks which were wrecking the contacts, the fact that it didn't work the first time being yet another reminder of this small reality. But this was saving the planet right? Why the hell throw things away like all the other morons out there? Heck probably these days there'd likely be a disturbingly large number of folk who would simply chuck a device just because the batteries went flat, probably iFans bless 'em poor sods, convinced by corporate greed that their possessions were impenetrable boxes to be thrown away with the trash when they expire on demand... but this was the world of today. No one wants to fix anything or take care of anything anymore. "The Chinese will simply make me a new one for less than I earn in the time it takes me to fix the thing myself" is what people think... only they don't think. It probably never even occurred to them that that there thing they just broke was MADE by someone let alone that it might be fixed.... This was the world she was living in.
A bit bored Ulla sat at her balcony in the evening one day far in the past - Otis Redding sung "Sittin' at the dock of the bay", the whiskey in her glass broke the light of the sunset - and she thought about the automotive history of herself and her family. It started in 1925 when her great-grandfather Robert bought the first car in family history. A Chevrolet. Ulla doesn't know much about it but the telling of her grandma. Well, a Chevrolet in Germany 1925? The family always owned cars and bikes of special kind. Never ever boring or cheap bullshit. And an idea came to her mind: Just to show family's automotive history with a collection of 1:43 scale models! Not sooner said than done she started to collect such models and ended nowadays at a nearly complete collection. Most of the models are "Made in China". All of them came with a cheap and ugly black plastic display base - except one: Her grandpa's IFA F8 Cabrio. It came with a wooden display base and a small brass sign on it with the name. "That's it!" Ulla thought "I should display this preciouses in a better way!" A display base made from beech or cherry wood, brass signs with name and nickname and dates. This would be milled and lasered parts of high quality. And it'll be expensive. Alas, it's just because this history is worth to be displayed in a worthy way! To bring valuable things to this world may compensate all the cheap disposable products Ulla uses usually ***urgh!*** Ulla smiled, lit another cigarette, rose her ice cool Beer and leaned back - listening The Kinks "Sunny Afternoon"
