May you live in interesting times, may you come to the attention of those in authority and may you find what you are looking for. (See Wikipedia’s entry, ‘May you live in interesting times.’)

Angharad, your blog entry reminded me of some happenings that did their best to cloud my peaceful existence earlier this week.

I travelled to the ‘Big Smoke’ (BS) to sign a contact with a tertiary institution so that they could pay me for teaching an evening class one night per week. Traffic in the BS is difficult at the best of times, and diabolical the rest. A journey from home to the BS is 2.5 hours.

So, the other day, I went south, coped with a plethora of paperwork, and spent time with the person teaching the other streams of the undergrad paper, and who has several semester’s experience with it.

We finished up mid-afternoon, and I went back to my car for the arduous journey home. The electronic door thingy was the first clue that something was amiss, because it wouldn’t unlock and I had to use the actual key. The clock in the car also thought it was 1:00. Attempts to start the engine were met with silence.

I went back to the department office looking for help. One of my new colleagues has a degree in mechanical engineering and a well-known aptitude for such things. Wonder of wonders she had a battery pack in her own vehicle, and was only too willing to help me get started.

“Don’t drive home with your lights on, and whatever you do, don’t stall the engine,” were her parting shots as I gingerly pointed the car in a northern direction. At this point it’s worth noting that in my country there’s an increasing number of motorists who now travel with their car headlights on all the time for safety reasons, and I certainly do so.

Everyone I’ve related this sorry saga to has of course commented at about this point, “I suppose you left your lights on when you got to the BS?” Not at all, it just can’t happen. My vehicle—a slightly older Subaru Legacy sedan—has something that automatically turns off the headlights when the key is removed from the ignition.

So, there I am, wending my way onto one of the northern motorways, with building homeward traffic volumes, and noticing that all is definitely not well with my car. It’s summer here, and the outside temperature was about 25°C/77°F and probably about 10 degrees hotter inside, given that I’d been parked in the sun. The air-conditioning wouldn’t work, the radio—which had lost all its preset stations—kept making noises like someone was turning it off, then on again and whenever I used my indicators, the regular click-click-click noise was noticeably absent.

In hindsight, I should have gone looking for a battery shop in the BS, but it’s a big place and besides, I had a plan. Midway between home and the BS is a small town where I taught at the local high school for a number of years. I knew there was an auto electrical business close to the middle of town, and if I hurried, I’d get there just before 5pm.

At 4.55, having driven briskly with no radio and air-conditioning provided by an open window, I found that the business was no longer there. Fortunately, I discovered this by slowing down, and didn’t need to turn off the engine. I continued on back to my own city, and a tour around some of the light-industrial parts of town revealed that at 6pm, anyone who could possibly help me had packed up and gone home.

I did the same, parked in the driveway and turned off the engine. Attempts to restart were met with silence. My next-door neighbour has a battery charger, so I borrowed it, and after finding the necessary tools, removed the battery, topped up the fluid levels—they weren’t too bad—and tried to recharge it. Like resistance, this too, proved futile.

My next-door neighbour is an older lady, probably in her 70s. Her daughter is currently visiting from another country, and they offered me a ride the next morning, down to a local auto electrical shop. Memo to self: if you’re buying a new car battery, always take the old one with you.

Of course there was a good reason why I didn’t bring the old battery along: it was covered in grease, and in these ecologically-aware times we don’t use plastic shopping bags any more. At least, I don’t, I have one of these reusable cloth ones. There was no way I was going to take that grimy old battery in someone else’s car!

So, we get to the battery place, and my request for a 12-volt car battery was met with a derisive grin from the bloke behind the counter. After discovering the make and model of my vehicle, he turned to a book, declaring, “this is about as useless as a chocolate teapot—on a summer’s day.” He was right. He showed me the battery that the book said was the correct one for my car.

“There’s no way that’s going to fit on the battery tray,” I said.

So, we spent a good five minutes looking at the different shapes and sizes, while my good-Samaritan next-door neighbour’s daughter and her partner sat outside in their car, waiting. Eventually we decided which one it should be, then came the acid question: “What sized posts does your old battery have?”

“Posts?”

“You know, the terminal things, are they big or small?”

I had no idea, so I bought the one with the more common larger posts, and armed with a plastic bag for the old battery, home we went. Good-Samaritan next-door neighbour’s daughter asked, as she dropped me off, “Shall I wait to see if it fits?”

“No, it’ll be all right.” Famous last words. Off she and partner went visiting for the day.

It was the right size, but the terminals in my car needed a battery with small posts. Bugger!

I rang the battery place—they have a service where they’ll come to you for a small fee. No, make that a large fee. I spoke to the person who’d sold me the battery. Was that more derisive laughter I heard in the background? Unfortunately it seemed, they were short-staffed and wouldn’t be able to help for any size of fee.

Desperate? Who, me? Oh yes. At this stage of the morning, I was supposed to be at work, at another part-time job I have. After talking to next-door neighbour, I phoned neighbour-over-the-road, and yes, she’d give me a ride back with the two useless batteries.

This time, it was a straight swap, the new one with big posts for the same model with small ones. Back home, it fitted like a glove, the car started first time, and everything works as it should.

Oh, the old battery had a sticker buried under the grime to indicate that it was a 2006 model from before I bought the vehicle. Sometime in the next couple of weeks before my first evening class, I’m going to buy one of those battery packs for emergency situations. I don’t want to be caught again with similar problems at 9pm when my evening classes finish, and it seems like cheap insurance to me.

May you live in interesting times, indeed. I have been, too.

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