Colm O'Regan: The NCT is like a middle-aged Leaving Cert exam — every year

Comedian and Irish Examiner columnist Colm O'Regan pictured in Cork. Picture: Denis Minihane.

It's like a middle-aged Leaving Cert. But it’s every year.

Every time I swear I won’t do it. But every time I break my oath. I promise myself I am going to sit in my chair and wait for my fate. I can’t do anything so what’s the point in looking.

But each time my legs act of their own accord and I am drawn inexorably towards the big window which overlooks a hive of activity. All just to look at the car going through the NCT.

For those of you who don’t know what the NCT is, let’s say that with all your money you accidentally forget to get a new car before your old car turns four. 

Then you have to bring yourself to go through a rite of passage every couple of years. Or every year, if you accidentally forget to change the car every 10 years. The good old days of the pandemic and the never-ending NCT queue are over. The doctors will see you now.

I look at the mechanics buzzing around my jalopy, trying to guess what their reactions are. Why are they laughing? IT’S NOT FUNNY. Why are they revving it so much? The car won’t like revs. It’s never been revved. I’ve inherited my father’s hatred of revs. 

When I was learning to drive and revving too much, his expression was pained. It was like watching a dog hear a lawnmower. I never saw a man want to get into fifth gear so quickly. As soon as the car got on the road, he went up through the gears quicker than Max Verstappen.

Back in the waiting room, the powerlessness is palpable. I can’t control what’s happening on the other side of the glass. 

It feels like me and the car have committed a crime together but the police are questioning us separately before we’ve had a chance to get our story straight.

“ASK ME ABOUT EMISSIONS” I scream silently through the glass. But they won’t. They’ll ask the car and she can’t lie.

To take my mind off the test, I look around elsewhere in the centre. I notice there are plants in the garage. I wonder are they Ireland’s Hardest Potted Plants. Reared on a diet of pure nitrogen oxide, sulfur dioxide and benzene. They could produce plastic flowers.

Eventually my name and car make are announced. Colm O’Regan Toyota Avensis. It’s part of my identity now when it’s announced like that.

Before I am announced, I look around and try and match the person with the car brand and make judgements. Yep, I thought he’d be an Audi alright. 

I see him overtake someone dangerously on the stairs down to the advice centre. (A wonderful euphemism, advice centre. Like the way civic amenity are the words used for dump).

Sometimes I’ve passed first time and I have to stop myself from saying “are you sure?” But usually there’s some little thing, and sometimes it’s a big thing.

And it’s never what you expect. You kind of find out a bit about your car over the years. “I didn’t even know there was such a thing as a Rear Offside Confibulator”.

But now the left Dexteriser on the Confibulator is worn out. And I have to get a new one. The garage man will cluck sympathetically later and say “yeah it’s just the luck of the draw whether they’ll pull you up for that. Just depends on the tester on the day.”

What you want is one of those visual inspection failures. That’s almost better than a pass. Because you can breeze back with your numberplate washed and boot emptied while others fret in the advice centre.

The next one is next Monday. We’re doing interrogation prep now.