On Monday afternoon I got a call from Andrea. Jeep wouldn't start and Andrea was stranded at Vons (Stevenson Ranch) with the Trevor fast asleep in his car seat. I suspected a dead battery and my dad confirmed this. One option was to call the Auto Club and have them jump start Jeep. The other option was for me to leave work, go help Andrea, and then go back to work.
It was decided that I would jump start Jeep, go back to work, buy a battery on the way home, and install it that night. I've never jump started someone else's car, and never installed a battery, so I figured this would be good experience. I was mentally psyching myself up to work late when my dad said, "Don't worry about coming back [to work]. Just go and make sure everything's okay."
If you say so.
After borrowing jumper cables, I called Andrea and told her I was on the way. Surprised, she said, "If Triple-A can jump start me, why do you need to come?" After some runaround, I said, "I don't know. I don't... really... but my dad basically told me to go anyway, so I'm coming."
It's a good thing I did.
The new plan was that I would jump start Jeep and send Andrea home with Truck. While Andrea drove home, I'd buy a battery and would then install it at home. I arrived some 25 minutes later.
"Do you know what you're doing?"
"Not really, but it should be pretty easy. Red is positive and black is negative."
"You should read [the battery section] in the vehicle manual."
Whatever.
"Ok."
I read the section and thought, "All right. This is pretty easy... positive to positive, negative to engine... start car 1... wait... start car 2... remove in the reverse order... Got it!"
After popping the hood on Jeep, I noticed that the positive terminal was covered in what looked like old battery acid (not that I really know what old battery acid looks like). Additionally, it looked like the cap was attached with a nut. Having no tools, I gave up. Andrea called the Auto Club. After a few minutes, my dad called and I learned that what I thought was the positive terminal cover was actually the positive terminal itself. *smacks forehead*
I then began the process of attaching the jumper cables... positive to positive... negative to...engi-
BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!!!
I don't remember much after that, but this hospital bed sure is comfy.
Just kidding.
After idling Truck for about 5 minutes, Jeep still wouldn't start. The Auto Club driver showed up and he couldn't get it to start either - it took both his truck and Truck to get Jeep enough juice to start. We decided to drive straight to Wal-Mart and get a new battery installed. AAA left and Jeep drove all of 300 feet or so until it died again (EDIT: Wow... I did the math and looked at a map... 327 feet. That was a pretty good guess, if I do say so myself).
I knew what I had to do. (sigh)
"You steer and I'll push you."
Not exactly what I was planning to do with my afternoon, but there was no other choice. We made it from Claim Jumper to Sport Chalet, where an employee must have seem me near death behind Jeep. He helped me push the rest of the way, all the way around back. After exercising, most people feel like they've added years to their life. After pushing Jeep's 5000 lbs. or so (gross weight, not curb weight... gross weight sounds better) for half a mile, I felt like I shaved off five years from my life. I was dripping with sweat, head throbbing, and legs shaking. We went inside and bought water and a snack. The ordeal was finally over.
On the way home, I made a classic error - I forgot to close the gas tank door after filling up. I always feel like such a fool driving around with the little door open. "Look everyone, I just got my license yesterday!" Um, not that it happens to me often.
It was after 5pm when we finally made it home. We relaxed for a bit and I finished my snack - TGI Friday's brand pepper jack snack "fries" (from WalMart). We then decided to head back out to Vons since Andrea's first attempt was unsuccessful. I decided to give the glasses a rest and put in my contacts. I put in the right one and almost got whiplash from the burning sensation that ensued. The back of my eyeball began to ache. I pulled the contact out as fast as possible.
I looked in the mirror.
"Can you see how red my eye is?"
"Oh, yeah. What's that from?"
"My contacts must have been in the solution too long. Unless..."
*smacks forehead again*
(defeated) "I never washed my hands after eating those things (the hot fries). I only wiped them off with a napkin!"
We departed after a good laugh at my expense.
In the Vons parking lot, I spotted an SUV with the tailgate open. Jokingly, I said, "Hey look... Ha! She probably forgot to close the back door."
Sure enough, she rolled back a couple feet, got out, closed the back, got back in, and drove off. As you may expect, we had a good laugh at her expense.
"Hmm... I wonder why I can see so clearly out the back? Hey! Wait a minute!"
and
"I forgot to close the gas tank door, but she forgot to close the whole back of her car!"
I made this picture for USC. I don't even like football, but I listened to a bit of the game on the radio last night. I think I was just curious because of all the hype. After Andrea and I each won a round of a board game, I checked back to find that Texas was ahead with only seconds to play. They ended up winning. Yee haw.
