A fascinating tale of weather, work, and awful cars that suck

A beep.


It's 5:00 am, time to wake up. But I'm tired from watching that documentary that was supposed to be a response to the 2012 movie, so I punch "Snooze" on my phone's alarm clock and turn over.

5:30 am rolls around. Dad knocks on my door. It's time to wake up.

I do my usual, morning pee, grab a coffee (tastes like crap today), watch the weather (12* F outside, thanks for your cold air Canada!), check my Facebook (No I will not be your neighbor...), take a shower, and slap on some clothes for work. 6:45 am rolls around. Whoops, shoulda been at work already, as I start at 7 and we were opening early to have some crazy sale or what have you.

Mom starts the car for me, but there isn't enough time to let it warm up properly. I drag myself outside to scrape the outside window. Surprise, gotta scrape the inside of the windshield as well. Love my car.

Car rattles itself down to my work. I park in an opportune spot, go out to the front of my store, and wait to be let in. There's only 2 people outside waiting for us to open. They make small talk, and I smile and say a few things back.

I'm let in, they're let in, we're all in at 7am. Yay!

Work goes by slowly. We are not very busy...

Finally 11am rolls around, and I am free to go, as it's not so busy. Yay. I clock out and start to leave. As I am exiting the store, my lucky rock (yes I have a lucky rock) I carry around falls on the ground. I feel uneasy about it, but then run to my car, where it takes two tries, but it starts. I think nothing of it. Thanks, car.

I persuade my car to drive to Albertson's so I can buy some Meow Mix, a whole chicken, and some Coffee Mate Creamer. The French Vanilla kind. Fat free, of course. I get to the checkout, ask for two packs of Virginia Slim Ultra Lite Menthols (for my mom of course, I don't smoke!), pay up $30 or so for the whole thing, and am on my way.

I get out to my car, and it starts on the first try. Lovely. Loving it! Feeling a tiny grumble in my stomach, I decide upon Subway for lunch. $5 footlong is going through my head and I'm hating it.

I pull my car up to the Subway, park it, and run in. Decide upon an Italian BMT instead. Lettuce, cucumbers, onions, olives, mustard. Nom nom.

I run back out to my car, drop the sandwich into the passenger seat and stick the key in the ignition. I turn the key... and nothing happens.

I try again. Nothing. Again... Nothing. Frustrated, I punch my car's dash, telling it that I hate it and that it is worthless and many things that express my distaste for my stupid '90 Ford Escort with a custom built switch button to turn my engine fan on manually. Custom because it's necessary. Because my car sucks. It sucks balls. I hate my car.

I open up my phone, call my mom, and tell her the situation. She says not to call my dad, which I instantly misunderstand for, "call your dad," and do so. He says that he's busy and can't help. Then my mom calls back, complains at me that I called my dad (Honest, I misheard!) and says that she can get a friend to come jump me.

Meanwhile I have already propped my hood up and started to stand pathetically in front of my car while sucking on a lukewarm white chocolate mocha with whip from Tully's.

A nice man headed into the Liquor store next door asks me if I need a jump, and I say yes, call my mom back, and tell her not to send her friend. The man runs in, buys his drink, and comes back out, and we give starting my car a try.

No go. /sigh.

Another guy jumps in, says that I probably just need a new battery (I'm sure I do, because I've needed once since I got back from Australia), and that that's probably what's wrong. I agree. The other guy doesn't. I thank both of them and send them on their way, while calling my mom to come pick me up (on my dying cell phone that can't hold a battery charge, no less..)

We head to Sears, where I dish out $80 on my credit card (*cries*) for a cheap battery with a 16 month warranty. I lug what must be twenty bricks compressed into a purse sized plastic box into my mom's car, and we go to pick up my grandpa (who is 81 and wearing an awesome hat with earflaps).

Eventually we arrive back in front of Subway/the Liquor store, and manage to replace the battery. We try starting it.


It coughs once.


Then nothing.


I turn the key again.


Nothing again.

I look at my mom in the car to my left and she shakes her head. Then my grandpa tightens a few things, and tells me to try it again.

Finally, my heap of shit of a car groans to life once more.

I cheer, throw my arms in the air like Hiiro Nakamura, and give my grandpa a big hug. But that's not all... Once I get home, I find that there's a package for me... it's my niiiice new Logitech gaming mouse that Willzy bought me for Xmas, hooray! All is well, even though I'm probably $800 in debt now. That's alright... I have a job, that's what jobs are for, right?

Even though I have one work day next week...


Yeah...



Nice. *sigh*



Anyway, that's how my day has been so far, I thought I would try to share it with you all in present tense... or... whatever, haha. I blame it on my rock falling from my pocket, or maybe that was just a warning of bad things coming. Ah well, things worked out in the end. But my car still sucks.


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TL;DR/Teal Deer version:
My car sucks, had to buy a new battery today cos it died on me, it is frickin freezing out there, dammit Canada for giving us your cold air.

ALSO

Have some pictures of my dog in a coat.

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She's such a dork.
 
Hey Sugar...sorry to say this, but your old battery's probably still OK. It was most likely just a bad connection somewhere in the first place. Which is why it worked when your grandpa tightened whatever he did.

Battery cables in older cars have a tendency to get corroded up real bad at any connections, making for poor connections, and random starting issues.

If I was closer, I'd fix that up for ya...but as it stands, you may have to find a friend to do that.

And hey, it's been colder here. Down to -40 C, which is also -40 F, if I remember correctly. :)
 
Yeah I'm pretty sure that you're right Canadian Bacon, about the whole old battery being okay thing...

But hey here's an update to my day:

  • Dad accidentally had my BoA bank card and overdrafted my account
  • Car doesn't work AGAIN. WTF
  • My fish died.



GOOD DAY OVERALL AMIRITE
 
:hug2: Thanks :P Lol. I'm trying to keep an upbeat attitude about it; if you think about it, it'd make a fairly decent episode of a sitcom or something.

Yesss Quinta (the Ho, as we call her) is a dork. She runs around the house beating herself with socks and likes to chase vacuums, I love that dog!
 
Yeah? Well I'll see your snow and stupid battery... CL lost 2 xbox 360's on his way to work today because the truck camper door came open. He doesn't know where they went. Its like a 35 mile drive.
 
That sucks about the xboxes! D: I would probably cry if I lost those driving!

We did clean the connections and everything, when I had it at my grandpa's house :/ For now I guess I'll just use my grandpa's car, until we can figure out what is wrong with my car.
 
No offense, but did you get the connection on the starter itself? It can get pretty grimey down there...and if that's where the bad connection is, it won't matter how clean the other connections are. :tongue:
 
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