Monday - December 13, 2022

Monday, Monday....

I decided to go to the office yesterday, since I didn't go last week.  The plan was to go in for a couple of hours, clarify an assignment, check on a couple of "in progress" things, maybe get some face time in with The New Boss, and leave.  Anticipating this, I got my act together and ordered groceries from Walmart Sunday night, to be picked up between 10 and 11 on my way home from the office.  Good plan.

Neither my mentor nor The New Boss came in until almost 10.  By that time, I'd about given up on seeing them and had packed up my stuff, but I dug out my notebook and pen, saw all the people I needed to see, and schlepped my bags to my car.  

It would not crank.  Battery was stone dead.  This I did not understand, for I had not left the headlights on, nor a door open, nor anything like that, and there'd been not a hint of a problem when I'd cranked it at home.  

I did not want to ask anyone in the office for a boost.  The ladies were all dressed nicely, The New Boss was in a suit, and the one guy who might have actually had booster cables is about 100 years old, and I hated to ask him to come out in the cold.  

I reluctantly dug out my AAA card.  The last time I had to use AAA for roadside assistance was a nightmare (not made entirely of AAA's doing) that I dreaded to repeat.  I looked at the clock on my phone; it was a little after ten.  The groceries were to be picked up by 11; it would probably take me that long to either use the AAA app or get a live person on the phone.  I put the AAA card back in my wallet and called a local wrecker service that had boosted my car another time when I'd called AAA.  They're about 5 minutes down the road from where my car was parked.  The last time I needed them, they were there in a flash.  

It took them an hour to get to me this time.  Charged me $65 (which AAA will reportedly reimburse if I send them the bill).  

The battery cables were BLUE with corrosion.  The wrecker dude boosted me off with a little hand-held device (reckon where regular folks could get one of those?) and said I ought to have the battery tested, and not to turn off the car until then.  So after I picked up my groceries, I drove to the auto parts store where we bought the battery a year ago.  The battery was fine, they said; the cables were just too corroded.  They cleaned them for free, which didn't take long, but they dropped a socket into the motor and couldn't find it.  Took them 30 more minutes to retrieve the socket.  If they'd taken my suggestion (get the car rolling really fast and slam on the brakes), I might have gotten out of there sooner.  

There was one more errand to do before I could head home.  About this time every year, The Husband's workplace has their Christmas dinner, and he is always asked to bring a dish we call "Hanky Pankies," a combination of pork sausage, ground beef, and cheese, toasted on party rye bread.  Party rye bread is hard to come by these days.  My assignment was to find some; barring that, I was to find regular-sized rye bread that we can cut into squares.  No store in the county had party rye bread.  After two stops, I found the regular-sized rye bread.  That'll have to do.

It was nearly 2:00 by the time I made it home.  Had to unload all the groceries and put them away before I could finally settle down to work.  Because I'd squandered 4 hours of my workday on batteries and bread, I worked fairly late into the evening to make up the time.  Never let it be said that the county isn't getting its money's worth out of me.  ;)