An example of why we have been slow to update recently...

Auto Repair 101

It's a good car. I don't know why everyone keeps giving me a hard time about it. Sure, it has a dent and a scratch here and there. Big deal? At least I bought the car after the depreciation leveled.

At the price I paid I can ditch it by the side of I-80 in January and it will have paid for itself.

So it doesn't have the cute idle purring sound of a new car. I've heard cute idle purring new cars that chug along in traffic.

It's a good car. Sometimes it's hard to start.

Not because there's interanl trouble, but because you have to turn them all the way over. That happens in older ones. The ignition just isn't that firm any more...man, that sounds degrading to women.

Anyway.

I only had 30 minutes for lunch today.

In order to get out early tomorrow for the 7th row seats for the Oakland A's, I need to trim lunch hours and come in early a few times.

Whatever.

The A's could make up a few games in the AL West and AL Wild Card with this series.

It was hot out today, sure.

But not so hot that THAT would be the reason the reason the car wouldn't start.

It had gas.

The battery was fine.

The CD player that skips more than a pack of parochial school girls with a lifetime supply of bubblegum and jump ropes was working as fine as it should.

Why wouldn't the thing turn over?

There wasn't even that clickkkkkkity- clickkkkkkity-Click-CLICK sound when you have a dead battery.

I wasn't going to call the car names.

First, because it hasn't been named.

Second because I didn't have time.

So, sinc eI had just changed jobs wihtitn the organization I had to get a new ID. I went inside the building and got my picture taken for my new ID.

This is the haircut I chose to have for the next three years?

Hell, at least I know I'll have hair for the next three years.

I didn't have more than five more minutes to screw with the car on the way out of the building. The building I work in was only three blocks away on the site.
Three blocks and 457 degrees Fahrenheit.

After twenty minutes I couldn't stand it.

On top of all the other stupid things I had done this day I forgot the Roadside Assistance card recently sent in the mail.

When would I need that?

Pffft.

I grabbed my keys and sunglasses and headed back out the door.

The sweat had just dried toward the middle of my back from the original trek as I went out the door, again.

This car won't start.

I can offer it an Orange Dream machine from Jamba Juice and it won't start.

Thirty minutes back at the office.

That's not the limit of my patience; it's how long the sweat takes to dry.

A call to Parking & Transportation services began a jovial conversation regarding the differences between an employee with a parking pass or an employee without a parking pass. My car still won't start. "Can you swing by and give me a jump start?"

A brief explanation to the operator that I could simply hang up and call back and say that I was a visitor. This line of discussion would get us no nearer the transaction.

Another venture.

Another 30 minutes.

Maybe this time, whatever happened will have stopped happening or not stop not happening...ugh.

A gentleman parked next to me offered a jump start.

Humans are great sometimes.

Except when they throw down the cables at your feet as if saying "now, squeal like a pig!" and posturing as if it's your duty to hook the cables up.

That's fine.

That's not fine.

START!

The gentleman went though a checklist of items that sounded like automotive parts. Or it was the Krebs Cycle meets cold fusion. I don't know. I do know I should just keep nodding like I do know and make sure there are at least 5,000 people within shouting distance in case this is about to turn into Thunderdome or a prison rape scene.

There are.

I'm panicking over nothing.

I thank the man and he drives away.

That's it.

Suddenly I'm a visitor.

I panic.

I don't have an accent.

Which is okay, because I'm on hold for 15 minutes.

That's it.

I paid the extra $7 a month for Roadside Assistance, they are going to assistance me even if it's for something as trivial as a snowman with his hat off or an untied shoelace…whatever it is that makes cars work under these hood-thingies.

A 40 minute search of the ultra efficient insurance website turns up no information on how to contact their Roadside Assistance crew. Several hundred words on what it can do. But, no actual number to call them.

Some surfing on the internet unveiled that Yahoo! Actually has a series of automotive trouble shooting procedures you can read through.

Yah.

Cables.

Uh huh.

Voltage regulator.

Sure.

The Johnson Rod.

Wait.

I didn't care about the sweat this time.

The fact that I looked like I had just run a marathon inside an industrial sized clothes dryer didn't seem to matter.

Have you ever read one of those great stories where someone has an epiphany, revelation or suddenly the skies open up and the bleedin' world makes sense?

Yah, I think they're crap, too.

I didn't have the gearshift in park.

I am a fucking moron.

Turn.

Click.

Vroom.

Away I go.