The car. Is four years old. It's been hit more than once ::coughsistercough::. The windshield has two dings. One headlight bulb was replaced a month ago and the other was replaced last week. The seats and floor mats have endured the insults of snow, slush, salt, and Pepsi.
The car is not a Porsche.
Someday, Porsche. Someday you will be mine mine mine -- and no one under the age of 30 will be allowed inside. Nor will pretzels, chips, granola, raisins, wet shoes, wet dogs, or wet beverages. Someday, if it survives, the car will be passed on to a Boy Who Has Received His Driver's License. That will be the day my license goes into the shredder, except for when I feel like taking my tomato-red Porsche out for a drive.
Until then, I'll take good care of this car. Its gas tank will be filled. It will receive the occasional wash. The oil will be changed within 500 miles of the date or distance scribbled on the little Colorform in the windshield's upper left corner.
And I'll continue to schlep the jumper cables.
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Cupcake and I went to the supermarket Thursday after school and before choir practice, along with everyone in our metropolitan area since snow had been predicted within 500 miles of us sometime in the next decade and that's how we roll around here. We picked up our Super Bowl supplies (go Saints!), Cupcake had a hot chocolate and a gelato (which canceled each other out and neither of which she offered to share with me), and we left the store with plenty of snackage and ample time to make it to her rehearsal.
At this point please imagine the screeching sound of a needle being drawn across a vinyl record. Thank you.
The battery was as dead as a coffin-nail.
Triage!Triage!Triage! Whom to call first? Sister at work -- can't leave. Brother-in-law? Office too far away. Father, playing chess at a friend's house -- not easily reachable. Mother at home? Probably available; almost certainly grumpy. Car dealership? Roadside assistance? Gas station on the next corner? No guarantee that any of them can arrive in less than an hour.
In accordance with the ancient law that Anything for a Grandchild, I handed the phone to Cupcake so she could call Mawmaw. As predicted, Mawmaw skittered to the rescue so her little darling wouldn't miss choir practice, setting in motion the following tribute to Rube Goldberg:
- Car slams into the garage door that's opening way too slowly for a grandmother in a hurry...
- Causing the door to freeze in the limbo between closed and open...
- Necessitating a 50-point turn to get the car out of the adjoining garage door...
- Requiring a new garage door which has to be ordered and will be installed within a month.
Cupcake Punctuality Issue: under control. Sort of.
Car Not Starting Issue: not so under control.
Call roadside assistance, step out of the car (cold!) to locate the 166,143.72 digit Vehicle Identification Number, count backwards to identify the last four digits for Mr. Automatic Voice Man; when that's not acceptable, step back out of the car (cold!) to identify the final eight digits. Finally, when a Real Person picks up the line, step out of the car one more time (COLD!) to repeat the last four digits, then the last eight digits, then the entire VIN, at which point Mr. Real Boy announces that this car isn't on the list for Roadside Assistance but they'll send a truck anyway for the low, low one-time fee of $61.
I tell him to forget it.
So. Here I am in a parking lot full of cars, adjacent to a grocery store full of people stocking up on milk, eggs, bread, vegetable peelers, batteries, donuts, snow shovels, mangoes, socks, light ammunition, fake firewood, capers, matches, roadside flares and anything else one might need to survive a blizzard predicted to dump one whole inch of snow throughout the metropolitan area. If I can match up one of the cars to one of the people, preferably a young guy who likes to show off for women, I'll be in bidniz.
Do I stalk the supermarket in pursuit of a potential victim Good Deed Doer...
and follow him to his car, or choose my subject from among the people manning the various stores lining the parking lot? Manicure place? No. Yoga studio? Definitely not. UPS store or athletic shoe store? Either one a possibility.
Long Story Less Long
In the shoe store I sense a good omen: two male employees, no customers, because anyone who might normally be shopping for athletic shoes is at the grocery store stocking up on sardines and Jello in anticipation of the approaching one inch blizzard.
- The first guy declines to help me on the grounds that his car dealership told him not to use his car to jump anyone else's.
- I'm like Huh?
- The second guy, the younger one, offers to try.
- The car starts, the day is saved, and Cupcake calls Mawmaw to tell her we don't need her any more, just as she arrives in the supermarket parking lot.
- A new battery is installed in the car before the end of the day.
