Like most middle-aged men, I like shows like "Air Crash Investigation", and have seen most episodes more than once.

One message that comes through clearly, (apart from "it was important to find the black box, which is actually colored yellow"), is that a disaster isn't caused by a single event, but by a series of events that build a chain.

So…a couple of weeks ago I got my car serviced. I enjoyed the experience, the elderly Italian mechanic just loves his job and cares about the vehicles he services. So much so that I took my tractor in to him after that, and he steam-cleaned it twice (before and after the service)!

There was a minor hiccup with the car service, in that when they replaced the dying battery, their gadget for continuing power to the electronics failed and so things like my radio were wiped of its channels. Worse, it was locked via some onboard security system, and required entering a pin number to unlock it.

So I had the car's manual on the table. Somewhere, I knew, the pin-number was recorded in the manual, but its not, as you might expect, on the page that tells you how to operate the radio. At this stage you can hear a voiceover saying, "But little did he know that he would need that manual on the journey later that night."

The second significant event was that in one of my part-time paid jobs, the business has a storeroom in the premises next door. Its secured, so when you need something you grab the keys, walk up a flight of stairs, down a laneway, open a gate and two doors with the keys, grab what you need and bring it all back. "But on this day, he forgot to hang the keys up again, and when he clocked off later that afternoon, went home with the all-important keys in his pocket."

That evening, I got a call. A late call usually means something important, which could be a call to come in a pick up an extra shift. But this time it was about the keys. Did I have then? They needed to get into the store room.

It was urgent, I had the keys, and I said I would drive them in immediately.

Its only a twenty minute drive, but halfway there I felt the car shift abruptly and then the tell-tale flap of a flattening tyre.

I pulled over.

My car isn't new, but its relatively new to me. I haven't had to change a flat tyre on it before. It's a ute with a rear cabin, and I figured the tyre would be under a lift-up panel in the back, and the tools in a panel on the side.

So I opened the back cabin, to find myself staring face-to-face with a chicken.

Debriefing afterwards I worked out the chicken must have got in in the morning when I had the back open, and had been locked in all day. Lucky it was a cool day and the car had been parked in the shade…..

Parked on the side of a busy road, I figured I had about three seconds before the chicken panicked and bolted and I'd be chasing her on the road. [Insert your joke here about playing chicken, or perhaps a humorous explanation as to a why the chicken crossed the road]. I quickly scanned the back and realized there was no panel to lift, no side panel hiding tools.

"It was at this stage he realized he had left the manual on the table. "

I closed the back and rang my wife. She laughed when I explained that it had all got too complicated and could she pick me up.

Twenty minutes later she arrived, we drove into town and I walked into work. I explained why it had taken me nearly an hour to show up. My boss digested my explanation, and looked me in the eye: "I don't know how you got to adulthood."

On the way back we picked up the chicken, rolled my car into a workmate's driveway, and went home.

The next day I came back, having read the manual. The tyre was UNDER the car, there's a hole in the bumper-bar where you crank it up and down with the tyre-jack. The tyre-jack is in the cabin, behind the passenger seat.

And the day after that, when I was getting something out of the rear cabin, I found….two eggs.

At least I know what the chicken was up to.