Not what I intended to do at lunchtime ...

[hrj]

So on my lunch hour I drove over to the 4th St foodie cluster to do some shopping for the tea party, and just after I got out of my car in the parking lot, a woman in the next row over asks a passing guy if he could give her car a jump. "Sure, if you have cables," he says. No, she says, she doesn't have cables. "I have cables," I offer cheerfully, and tell the guy I have it under control.

Well, even though she had left her lights on, the problem doesn't seem to be only a dead battery, because we can get status lights and whatnot but not even the slightest click out of the ignition. In the mean time, she's stressing out because she's supposed to be teaching a class up near campus in half an hour, and she has a car full of class materials.

"So," I say, "If I take you to your class, do you have a way to get back to your car?" She is stunned and blathers something about all her boxes of materials. (It is, evidently, a scrapbooking class.) I jerk my thumb in the direction of my vehicle. "Duh! SUV!"

We load it up and I deliver her to Cedar & Walnut. She gets my address "For a little thank-you" but I tell her to pay it forward instead.

Just time to get back to my desk. No shopping. No lunch. Sudden unexpected (pointless) meeting waiting for me. *sigh* (Lunch later, though.)

My parting thought: Next time she has car troubles, will she return to assuming that you ask the man first?

Comments

[lapioggia.livejournal.com]

hopefully not, and perhaps she will also invest in cables of her own. I can't even imagine owning a car & not having them!

[ichseke.livejournal.com]

Ha! I had a similar experience (to hers, not to yours) a couple of weeks ago and although I had a large and fairly competent-looking man with me, two other men (or should I say Guys) in the parking lot insisted on being knowledgeable and helpful. We *were* able to get the car started and kept the engine going throughout the rest of the errands (one person sits in car while other goes into store) and got home fine. But next time it not only wouldn't start but wouldn't take a boost.

Turns out it wasn't the battery but the starter. I guess the jumpstart was its last gasp. So next time you encounter this maybe you can get all macha and tell your victim to get the starter checked.

[gunnora.livejournal.com]

You can even work around a fried starter, if you have a long screwdriver and can reach in to gap across the starter and solenoid with the screwdriver. I did this for about three weeks back in the day when I had my old Chevy Vega, because I couldn't afford the rebuilt starter until then. Nowadays I call Triple A and pay someone else to do the car work, but back then I was a poor college student.

[gunnora.livejournal.com]

EVERYBODY needs a set of cables, an improved car jack, a good tire iron, some sort of flares or other emergency markers, and a blanket in their car in case of trouble. Add a three-foot long piece of pipe that will slide over the tire iron handle in case more leverage is needed to unstick an impact-wrenched lug nut! And a small fire extinguisher, serviced annually. And a container with one gallon of water.

I've been shocked and amazed at how many people do NOT carry this stuff routinely in their cars.

In public, I have seen the "ask the guy first" mentality. But amusingly, my straight friends come to me because they believe all lesbians own power tools and that SURELY I will have whatever it is and be able to fix it! (And, indeed, we do own a lot of power tools...)

[lapioggia.livejournal.com]

Must admit I've never gotten around to the improved car jack though I also carry a can of fix a flat just in case.
The fire extinguisher is a VERY good idea! (I had the car set on fire by Jiffy Lube idiocy once) But you forgot the basic first aid kit, and emergency chocolate rations :>

[gunnora.livejournal.com]

You can get a floor jack for about $30 these days, and if you have ever fought with one of those itsy bitsy rhomboid jacks, it is SUCH a huge improvement.

I don't leave the first aid or chocolate in the car - Texas in-car temps get over 200, so I carry those in my Bag of Impossible Junk (i.e., my purse).

[layla-lilah.livejournal.com]

Back in the late 80s, my mom, who pretended to be feminist, got the bumper of her big American car stuck over one of those cement blocks at the head of a parking space. It was no longer bolted down and she began to drag it as she backed up.

I asked her where her jack was. I said, "All we need to do is jack the bumper up a little and pull the block loose." She said she didn't know where her jack was, she couldn't find the car manual, and we needed a man. I looked in her trunk but couldn't find the jack.

A big American car like hers pulled up. A man was driving and a woman was in the passenger seat. The man stayed in the car. The woman got out, she said it was her car and she knew where Mom's jack was. It hidden in a compartment under the carpet in the trunk.

The woman and i got the bumper jacked up and pulled the block loose. The woman got in her car, and they drove away. Moms' car was fine and she was able to drive off, but she refused to admit that a woman could do the job as well as a man.