Car Drama Round Two

If you read yesterday's blog, you know that my day started a little rough.

It got worse.

If you didn't read it yet, this blog will make much more sense if you read this first.

Anyway, here is the long-anticipated (at least in my mind!) Round Two of the Car Drama:

After calling the AAA guy TWICE, I let the car run for 20 minutes, planning to let it charge up a little then go to the store and get a new battery.

It is interesting to note that the AAA guy said “Ma’am, you know you need to leave the garage door open, right?  You can’t just leave it running in there.”

And I couldn’t even get upset that he clearly thought I was a moron because, after the whole car key conundrum, I felt like a moron.

Anyway, I eventually backed out sloooowwwwlllly, then stopped because I had to put the garage door down. 

Unfortunately, we only have 1 automatic door on our garage, the other one has to be shut and locked from inside the garage. So, not thinking, I turned the car off, ran in, shut the garage door and ran back out.

At which point the car wouldn’t start.

The amount of cursing that accompanied this is really too horrifying to share.

Luckily there was a guy in the neighborhood who quickly offered to jump the car--thus saving me from a THIRD call to AAA, or my head might have popped right off.

He jumped the car, I drove to Walmart. However, ever the foresightful little bunny, I pulled into the auto repair lot and--instead of turning the car off again--got out my phone to call the auto department so I could pull right into an empty stall.

Which is when my stupid phone--in spite of its alleged 30% battery--went dead in my hands.

I then spent two or three satisfying minutes comparing my phone to excrement.  Which, thanks to my fabulous career in online moderating, I can actually do in 4 languages.

I shut off the car, went into the auto department, told them what was happening and they got out their big blue auto book only to find that they don't stock the battery for a 2005 Miata.

“You have to be kidding,” I said.

“I wish I was,” the clerk said sympathetically.

“Not as much as I do.”  I replied.  “Can you order it in?”

“No,” the clerk said. “We don’t carry it at all.”

And then I just stood there and stared at him in shock, utterly speechless.  I mean, I try to avoid WalMart as much as possible because I kind of buy into the hype that they are evil corporate giants who squeeze out little mom n pop operations by carrying everything under the sun.

Except, apparently, a battery for a 2005 Miata.

The clerk then suggested I go to O'Reilly's.  I suggested that this was going to be challenging as I was pretty sure the car wasn't going to start again.

And I was right. I got it, tried it, and it didn’t start.

They hurried out with some little hand-held jump machine, got me started and I drove to O'Reilly's.

At which point I learned that O'Reilly's stocks the battery but the local store was out.

That’s when I knew that one of two things was happening:

A.   A government conspiracy was in the works.

OR

B.   Opie had been in cahoots with all the local retailers, somehow pressuring them into not selling me a battery, because he hates my car.

Either way, I was once again speechless.  And I think I kind of creeped out the clerk because I didn’t say a word, I just  kept staring at him with this slightly hostile, shocked expression.

“We have one at our Glenpool store,” he said after an uncomfortable pause.

“Where,” I asked, “is the O'Reilly's in Glenpool?”

And then they gave me a bunch of directions that included words like "West" and "North" and other nonsense and—after some more slightly hostile staring—we all decided that it made more sense to leave the car at O'Reilly's, walk the mile and a half home, let them get the battery sent over from the Glenpool store and call me when they had the battery installed.

So, I waked home assuming, based on how my day had been going, that O'Reilly's would put the battery in completely wrong, the car would explode, and an entire city block would be leveled.

In any case, they were supposed to call around 12:30. At 2:00 I called them and then started walking the mile and a half back.  Then, when I got in the shop, the clerk who had been helping me was gone and there was only one woman who knew what was going on with the car.

“She’s eating lunch,” the other clerk told me.

I wanted to tell the guy if he thought that I was doing another 3 mile round trip hike because they couldn’t get their act together, he was out of his tiny little mind.  However, since the hostile staring had been so effective earlier, I just went with that again.

“I’ll go get her,” he finally decided.  “She’s just in the back parking lot at our customer appreciation picnic.”

The irony of that was nearly overwhelming.

So, the female clerk came in, hotdog still in hand, and got all snippy with me, complaining under her breath etc.

This was an unwise choice.

“Honey,” I said with deceptive calm and what I assume was a creepy smile. “I used up the last of my ‘nice’ around 1:00 today. You should probably rethink your tone.”

The other clerk laughed and the woman opened her mouth, took another look at my face, and muttered “Sorry.”

Which was the only real victory of the whole day.

In any case, a mere SEVEN HOURS after my original attempt to leave the house, I had the first errand of the day done.

And, almost worth it because, no matter what Opie says, I still love this car!