Bad Acid Trip

When I was in college I would make periodic weekend trips home to visit my parents (aka steal groceries and do laundry for free). On these trips I would spend much of my time chit chatting with momma over cocktails or ditching my p.o.s. for one of their much nicer cars to head into town to visit friends that still lived back home. My dad was always a bit of ghost during these trips and almost immediately as I pulled in he would head out to the driveway and lift the hood of my car to 'tinker', or at least that's what momma called it.

Today I realized my dad probably wasn't 'tinkering' so much as he was doing regular vehicle maintenance. Now I am not so delusional to believe that the magic car fairy just came and made sure things were in tip top shape at night while I rested my pretty little head on my pillow but at the risk of setting back the feminist movement a few years I will say that the only time I have opened the hood of my car since I've owned it was when something was wrong, and I have been known to turn up the radio to drown out unfamiliar noises my different cars have made over the years. Is it so wrong to think that they people who change my oil might point out other visible problems such as low break fluid or battery corrosion so that they can charge me $46.95 to do something that I could do myself in 2 minutes for under $10? Apparently it was wrong. Lets start from the beginning...

Last April, SLBDJT and I were at Relay for Life setting up our tent while listening to some jams on Bruce's radio. I guess it took a little longer to set up the tent than we imagined it would because when I went to start Bruce up he just made a sad click click click noise. No problem, SLBDJT gave me a jump and recommended that I get my battery checked because I had owned Bruce for 3 years and told me that once you let a battery go dead like that it can happen easier in the future. Well, it is now January, nine whole months later and that little bit of wisdom just slipped my mind and why wouldn't it, he's started like a champ each and every time I've turned his key since that day....until Friday. It was camping weekend and there I was out in the sticks going in to register us and not five minutes later I came out and Bruce's battery was flat lined. Lucky for us SPBDJT was only about 5 minutes away and once again he came to Bruce's rescue. After this little incident I promised myself and SLBDJT I would get a new battery this week.

Being that I have never changed my battery before I enlisted the help of a few manly co-workers, and by help I mean I watched while they worked, and took some abuse to my intelligence level due to the large amount of corrosion that my battery had on it. Three hours, a trip to napa auto parts, a trip to advanced auto, some battery acid in the eye, a new battery, and a new battery terminal (I think that's what they said it was called) later and Bruce is up and running as good as new. All it cost me was $100, and a good amount of guilt should steve-o end up going blind.

I feel like I should thank my dad for all the 'tinkering' and also encourage all my friends who are currently dads to show their little girls how to do some of this stuff so they don't depend on the magic car fairy to take care of things when they get out on their own. Good talk, now off to bake steve-o some "sorry I blinded you" cookies.