Monday, August 23, 2010

Bits of my Weekend Vol 3

My plan this weekend was to fill my car with gas and find a nice mechanic to replace my headlight bulb. I was told that if I flipped my hair, batted my eyes and smiled, I should have no problem.


This is what I saw when I turned my car over at 6:30 am when I was going to go running. There is no picture for complete silence, right?

After the run, I jiggled my battery cables, and more lights came on, accompanied by a half-hearted whine. (the car, not me...yet...)


So, my car is in the garage and will NOT go into neutral. Thinking I may have to go BUY a battery and replace it myself, I tried to take the cables off the battery…


I have tools, see?


I tried several of these tools. I couldn’t do it.

I finally decided to call the Honda Service center, and they told me to remove this little plastic piece, and stick my key in to manually move the gear into neutral.


Not THAT little piece of plastic...


THIS little piece of plastic...


I then proceeded to push my car out of the garage and onto the driveway. Which has a slight incline… and I was pushing from the front. So, I PULLED the car to slow it down, and then ran to the door and hopped in and slammed the brakes on and put it into park.


Fortunately I had these.



I called a bunch of people and knocked on four neighbor’s doors, and finally got a response from sweet Lauren – who came to save the day!


Ahhh… don’t they look cute? Nose to nose and all?


We hooked them up.


please oh please oh please



Yippee!


Off to Sams!

That's enough of a day, don't you think?
Well, I pulled up to Sams, not knowing if I should turn my car off or not, because I wasn’t sure it would start again. But, I kinda figured they could handle it. But, see they were out of my kind of battery.
So the car wouldn’t start. A nice man called Justin brought out the jump box. It didn’t start my battery. He brought out the bigger jump box. It didn’t start my battery. He brought his OWN CAR up to my car. It didn’t... He brought out a new battery and unhooked my battery, put this one in, got my car started, and put my bum battery back in, and I was duly warned NOT to stop my car. (A side note - he didn't seem to have ANY trouble getting those nuts off my battery cables - I think he did it with his pinky finger)

I wanted to take a picture of Justin, but I didn’t know if it was appropriate, given the heat and exhaustion. And he tried to change my headlight light bulb, but he couldn’t get the clip out…
So, I got to the other Sam’s and knew I couldn’t turn my car off. But the automotive department check-in isn’t by the garage bays, and the bays were all closed AND I wasn’t tall enough to see in the little windows. So, I kept jumping in front of the windows until one of the guys saw me... (yeah, I'm sure you don't even need a picture to imagine this...)
He told me to keep the car running, and that they would keep an eye on it. I asked him if there were any way he could change out my headlight, and he said to let the people at the check-in know. I figured they would be women, and THAT is not who I thought would be moved by the hair flip, smile and batting of the eyes…
But when my battery was changed, and I got back to the check-in, the same guy came in and told me that he HAD changed my light bulb! Yeay! And my hair was even in a pony tail.

6 comments:

  1. What a day of accomplishment! You're amazing! : )

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  2. I agree with Beth. You are amazing and unstoppable.

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  3. What's a car battery?


    ;-D


    You go, girl!

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  4. I loved the part about you being too short to see in the window and jumping up and down until someone saw you. Baaahahahaha!

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  5. Oh... and the part about you pushing your car out of the garage and the incline causing the car to coast a bit too far off the driveway.

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  6. Love your persistence! Great story, well told.

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