The car won't start

And there I was, with a really sore throat, which made me cough like crazy (and that hurts even worse), when I heard somebody knocking just minutes after Ivette left for work.

It was Ivette.

"The car won't start."

Had this been in the middle of winter, I wouldn't had panicked (it's a no-brainer). But a drained battery in the middle of summer? It opens all sorts of possibilities.

Of course, Ivette being a woman, her immediate reaction was to call roadside assistance. That wouldn't work yet, so I told her I would take a look at the Jeep.

The sonofabitch was dead! The car's power locks would not even work, the only light inside the car came from the odometer, which is obviously powered by a small battery.

Fine, I thought, I'll pop the hood. The battery terminals were covered by neat mounds of acid foam. It looks as if the battery simply blew up from the heat, it was not the kind of acid residue I would have expected.

Fine, I thought, let's get a can of soda. With the terminals now clean, I tried again. Still dead.

Part of me prayed that it was only a dead battery, and not a fried alternator or worse. I called the local service shop to see if they had the battery in stock.

$100, and they would return $15 once we handed back the old battery. Oh, and they did not deliver, there was no way to get the battery unless I went to pick it up. I only have one car, so this is definitely a problem.

Ivette called a coworker, and 20 minutes later I had the new battery. Oh, and it was now over 90 degrees.

Overweight + sore throat + coughing + black car + 90 degrees < > fun

One would think that this is the end of the bad luck, but for some reason, some piece of shit with a sense of humor decided to specify metric bolts that were so close to their English equivalent that it took me almost half an hour to be convinced that I had the right socket.

On top of that, there is a plastic wedge, kept in place with one of the magic metric bolts, that is used to keep the battery clamped down. That bolt was exactly two inches deeper than the extension that I had at hand, so for half an hour (or so it felt like) the wrench was making three clicks per attempt. I was not using my own tools, so I had not noticed that the kit had a universal joint, which was not needed but did add another two inches to the total reach of the socket wrench. I was finally in the game.

It took me over an hour to remove the old battery, and I don't think it took five minutes to get the new battery installed. By then I was already resigned to the idea that the car wouldn't start and I would still need to call roadside assistance.

The sonofabitch started on the spot. It was the stupid battery after all. By then I was so drained that I could barely carry the dead battery to put it in the trunk so we can exchange it later.

By the way, the car is 5 years old, and that was obviously its first battery, so I am amazed that nobody tried to sell my wife a new battery the last three times she had the oil changed. You can always count on them to try to up-sell, so it shocks me that none of them noticed that the battery was on its last legs.