Laying in bed. 11am. Alarm goes off. I shut it off. Lay there for a half hour.
Mom slams the bedroom door open.
Mom: "Is your van driveable?"
Me: "No. Why?"
Mom: "Really? You can't drive it at all?"
Me: "No, it doesn't have a belt on it at the moment, the last thing I need is to blow the motor because it overheated from not having the water pump and cooling system running".
Mom: "🤬 (Fbomb)"
Mom: "Then get up, my car won't start"
Me: "It won't?"
Mom: "No, I tried everything I could think of."
Me: "Ok, I'll be out in a minute"
So I proceed to get up, throw a pair of sweatpants on, T shirt and coat. I headed outside to see what the deal is.
Me: "You run it out of gas?" [She has a bad habit of running it below E and squeezing out every last drop before refilling]
Mom: "It was really low, I think it might be out of gas"
Me: "Alright, well I'll open the garage and see if there's any gas in the gas can for the snow blower."
Me:
*Opens garage sliding door, searches for gas can*
*Walks right by it, looks around like an idiot*
*Turns around, it's right in my face*
So I got the gas can, and took 10 minutes searching for a funnel. Finally found one, pour about a half quart to a quart into the tank, just enough to get her to the gas station about 2 miles away. Good thing, because there wasn't a lot of gas left in the can anyways, maybe a 1/4 or so of a 5 gallon tank.
Me: "Alright crank it over, see if it starts"
*click click click click click click*
Me: "Well 🤬, you're batteries dead"
Mom: "My batteries dead?? How is that possible? I haven't even started it in a week!"
Me: "Exactly, and the weather has been so cold lately it drained it. Plus you've got a constant parasitic draw from the anti-theft system. Doesn't surprised me".
Mom: "Well now what? I've got to go! I need to be at work by noon!" [It's about 11:20am]
Me: "Well, I can jump it with something"
Mom: "Like what?"
Me: "Well, my van runs but I'm not sure if it will start due to the battery not being charged lately. I usually have to charge it for a little while before trying to start it. I'm willing to bet it's drained enough so that it won't start itself, let along jump someone.
Mom: "Hmm"
Me: "Put the key in, throw it in neutral. I'm going to try and push it over next to the pickup. I know that's got a good battery in it because it's brand new"
*Happens, failed because of too much snow built up underneath it, fails*
Me: "Yeah she's not moving"
Mom: "God dammit"
Me: "We need cables anyway, go check the passenger side of my van under the seat, pretty sure there is a pair in there.
Sure enough there was. Lot of good that was going to do us. Then it dawned on me.
Me: "Well duh, dad's got that jump box hooked up in the garage. Let's try that"
*Proceed to get out jump box and hook it up"
Me: "I know it's fuel injected but prime it anyways just in case"
*Pumps gas pedal 3 times*
Me: "Alright crank her"
*rer....rer....rer....rer*
*real slow*
We got about 4-5 decent, but slow cranks before it petered out.
Damn.
At that point she was getting pretty mad, so we called the neighbor's work partner who was up the road from us and he finally came and gave us a jump after more slow turning overs.
I went with her to work just in case it decided it didn't want to start again, though I figured it would with the alternator charging it on the way to work.
Finished work, went to Walmart and picked up a few things, stopped at McDonalds on the way home and then chilled for the rest of the night.
You know those polar expeditions where everybody's facial hair has a quarter inch of ice stuck to it??? Yup all for $11/hour. I've had some crap jobs but FedEx takes the cake for a whole list of reasons, working in the elements is actually at the bottom.
