No it's nothing sick and twisted. Just kind of sad and humorous.
I'll start it off with a joke: What do a public relations director, an automotive technician, and an aircraft technician have in common? You might at first say, "well, that's a weird combination."
Throw in an automotive battery and a 33rd birthday and you've got an average Wednesday night in Greer, South Carolina.
Yesterday happened to be my wife's birthday. The day had gone pretty good. We were having dinner at church (birthday dinner at church?, you might ask.... well, the celebratory dinner is this weekend. we do church activities on Wednesday as a routine) and my wife said, "It's been a really good birthday."
That thought didn't really last much longer. After our programs, we walked to opposite ends of the street and got in our respective cars that we had driven from our respective workplaces -- and then I get a call from her.
"My car won't start," she says.
Great. So I went to her car and tried to start it. No dice. Went inside and pulled a friend of ours who is an automotive technician off the Praise Team drum kit and asked for his help.
We tried to jump the car. With two different sets of jumper cables. No dice.
Great. So my wife and I take my car to the AutoZone down the street and I run in to get a battery. They have two people working the store, a line eight people deep, and are getting phone calls every two to three minutes. Everyone seems to want parts looked up in the computer, so it took forever just to make it to the counter.
"Battery, 03 Honda Accord, 4 cylinder, 2400," I rattle off. Guess what? --- they have ONE in stock. Fine, I'll take it. What's the damage? $90 plus tax.... WHAT? "Well sir, it's a three year battery and its our Gold level...."
"I've got your *grumble grumble* Gold level...."
And I walk out the door with the most expensive battery I've ever purchased.
Get back to the church. Fumble around BOTH cars for a wrench or socket that will fit the stupid terminals on the old battery, and all I could find was a pair of pliers.
After some creative ways of trying to get a pair of pliers to turn some very tight terminal screws, I threw the pliers on the ground.
"Honey, we gotta go to the house and get my tool set," I say. She refuses to leave the car. "It's parked at a church. Nobody's going to do anything to it." She refuses to leave the car and stays in it at the church.
So I went 15 minutes home, got my tool set, and went back. By the time I got back, everyone remaining at the church was on their way out. Our friend the automotive technician and his wife, along with another friend, an aircraft technician, are all outside talking to my wife.
I break out the tool set, and all three of us guys proceed to fumble through it by the light of a cell phone flash (the remain on until you press the button again flash is a great feature on my phone) for the right sized socket. We each take turns finding one and trying it and don't have any success.
At which point the girls decide to take another car and shine its lights at my wife's car for some added light.
I'm still not sure what size socket the freaking terminals take -- all I know is that the aircraft mechanic took an adjustable wrench, and with some brute force, finally got them to turn, all with the tips of the wrench gripping the very top of the terminal screws.
Then some more fumbling with the phone goes on on in trying to get light down the side of the battery, as I'm trying to fasten the battery restraint back on. Finally, everything went into place.
From start to finish, the whole ordeal took and hour and a half. I took the old battery and put it in the trunk. When I walked back to the front of the car, the aircraft technician is sitting on the ground organizing my tool kit which had been a mess when I opened it up.
And we followed that up with a 9:45 pm trip to Denny's.
Needless to say, now I've got an organized tool kit, a double cheeseburger in my system, an old battery to take in and get $5 for, a mess of jumper cables in my car trunk -- and my wife got a $90 battery for her birthday.
Not exactly the gift she had in mind.
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