It pains me to admit it but my dearly beloved little purple P-Reg VW Polo has just been diagnosed as a terminal rust bucket. The power steering went last week and the garage insisted it won't risk replacing any parts for fear of the entire thing collapsing at the touch of a spanner.

All of this has been deeply traumatic. As I trudged half a mile uphill home with bursting shopping bags, swearing at the horizontal rain, it came to me that winter for the many soggy sad Scots without a car is a miserable thing indeed.

Has not man evolved precisely so that he could place a few sheets of glass and metal between himself and the worst excesses of the elements? Is it not his natural right?

There is nothing for it, I will have to get a new car, or a new old car (as that is all I can afford) which has another few years in it before it joins Pugg in the great car compactor in the sky.

Us generation X-ers are notoriously ill equipped to deal with anything at all practically minded. Pensions, mortgages – forget it. The only reason I managed to buy Pugg in the first place was because my then-girlfriend practically gave it to me.

Every year, the road tax and insurance throw me into a panic that requires deep breathing exercises and beta-blockers. The idea of having to shop on the second-hand car market has me reaching for the Valium.

Nonetheless, after listening to my Tibetan wind chimes CD and taking a hundred deep breaths I took matters in hand as I leafed through the Exchange & Mart.

I came across an S-Reg Polo and it sounded identical to Pugg. I thought that a good start as the kids loved old Pugsly and if the two cars looked and felt the same then it might diminish the sense of bereavement. I dialled.

"Hello, you're selling a Polo?"

"Aye."

But then I was stumped. What questions should I ask a used car salesman? Are they not the most disreputable creatures on the planet? I don't know what a carburettor or an oil filter is or does or where to find it. I would undoubtedly be scammed into buying a stolen car that had been written off and sellotaped back together again – if I liked the colour.

I almost said, "Well, er… can you drive it round and I'll buy it?" Then remembered that I hadn't even see it.

"We're in Moodiesburn."

"Really, great… uh, so where's that?"

As the guy did his best to give me a street by street mental map, it came to me that the one essential element that was missing in my potential voyage to the viewing of my next rust busket was – a car. Catch 22.

With a complex hybrid of public transport and taxis, I worked out that the whole adventure might take four hours in all, and that since I didn't know what to do when looking at a car anyway, apart from kicking the tyres and checking the paintwork I decided to call the thing off.

After this superhuman effort all that has been established is that I am to modern society what my car is to the scrap yard.

There's nothing for it. I'm going to have to beg my girlfriend to buy a car for me.