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Car Batteries, Piano Lessons, and No Rain
This afternoon, we hopped in the car for our Tuesday afternoon errands. We had to stop by the dumpster, go to the library to return some books, hit the recycle center with our mixed paper products, and drop Jack off for group piano lessons. Katrina wanted to visit the Goodwill while Jack was at his group lesson, then we were going to finish off the day with our weekly grocery shopping trip.
The dumpster stop went off without a hitch. Then we headed to the library. As we got there, I realized that last week, Jack had asked to start carrying his own library card. I have always carried the kids cards just to make sure we have them when we show up at the library. Guess who had books on reserve to pick up and guess who didn't have their card with them? Yep.... so I went in with Jack and because I was with him, they let him check out his books even though he didn't have his cards (thank goodness as the library is 30 minutes from our house and we wouldn't have been back for another week, then the books he had on reserve would no longer be there).
Back out to the car to head to the recycle center. Turn the key in the ignition, slight start up noise, then nothing...absolutely nothing. So I called dear hubby and asked him to come give us a hand. I popped the hood and looked at the battery. It had been purchased in October of 2000!!!! It was a 60 month battery that had lasted 84 months! WOW! It was an Interstate Battery ( I share that because I am very impressed with its performance, sometimes it definitely pays to spend more on something). And the other day I was blogging about Interstate Battery being a green company dedicated to recycling, so I thought that was neat.
Anyway...it took Daniel about 35 minutes to get to us. We tried jumpstarting the battery...nothing. The battery was just dead as a door nail. It wasn't taking anymore charge. We tried for about 45 minutes before giving up and calling our Amoco tow service. Within 30 minutes the tow truck was there. He also tried jump starting the car, but to no avail. So he towed us to Advance Auto and we spent $84.00 that we really didn't have getting a new car battery. Fortunately our motor club took care of the towing fee. And I was grateful that he took us there instead of dropping the car at a garage that would be closed (after 5 pm).
I was also grateful that it didn't rain on us while we were standing there trying to get my car going. Mainly because my car windows were down and I couldn't roll them up because of the dead battery. Unfortunately, Jack did miss his group piano lesson, but it couldn't be helped.
So Daniel got us a bite to eat, then the kids and I went to get groceries. What a day...but all in all, I am grateful it wasn't something worse and more expensive.
