Rule Follower

I've always been a rule follower and I am sick of that. I can go to sleep at night but otherwise I get nothing for it.

Sunday my mom's car locked up on her. She barely got it into a parking lot, then it wouldn't start. Had to be towed home (it being Sunday) then on Monday towed to her station. Then towed again from there to an engine specialty shop. Her car won't be ready until mid-next week. No problem.

We have an extra car right now and I told her she could use it as long as necessary, and that we'd be right over. The car wouldn't start. I could tell it was the battery, so I got out the jumper cables but before rigging it up wanted to review the sequence. I couldn't find my cheat sheet anywhere, but the book that came with the car was in the glove compartment and it had 2 1/2 pages on jumping. Yea!

I was puzzled when I read that after a,b,c... the last thing I do is clamp the black onto the battery strap (the strap that goes over the battery to keep it in place.) I've jumped before and distinctly remember clamping the black on to something metal in the engine, away from moving parts. I read it 3 times, and following those instructions it said DO NOT CLAMP THE CABLE ONTO ANY OTHER PART OF THE CAR, ONLY THE STRAP. Well OK then.

I hooked it all up and turned the key... uhhhhn uhhhhnn uhhhhhnnnnn. It was the same as when I first tried to start the car. I unhooked, re-read, rehooked, and nothing. So I got Daughter B to help. A 3rd time and still nothing. I wondered about the strap, but being a rule follower I obeyed the rules and didn't try to clamp it on to anything else.

Tuesday I called Pep Boys, where I believed the battery was purchased. Their computers were down all day and they had no way to look it up. I decided the problem must be the old crackledy up jumper cables, and stopped by the Hell Hole (Walmart Supercenter) on my way home from work to buy newer, longer, stronger jumper cables. All they had were thin short cheap little things. But I noticed next to the cables were some battery-jumping charging contraptions.

After standing there and reading over both boxes several times I decided to buy one, took it home, read the rules, plugged in the adapter to charge the contraption so I could charge the car battery. By 9:30pm the contraption was fully charged, but I had to wait 30 minutes (because I follow the rules) after charging to use it. So at 10 pm I took a deep breath and took it to the garage.

The instructions for the contraption said the black clamp would go on a non-moving metal part of the car. Huh. Just what I originally thought. I got a screwdriver and tapped and scraped on the battery strap. It's hard plastic, NOT METAL. No wonder the jumpers didn't work. I decided to keep and use the contraption anyway and hooked it up, the green light came on immediately, I started the car, turned off the contraption and unhooked it. I went for a 30 minute drive to charge the battery a bit more. The drive included a stop at McDonald's drive-thru for a cone and food for my daughter.

Today after work the car started just fine, so I took it to my mom's, we went out to eat and she dropped me off at home.

I'm mad at myself because I allowed my rule-following gene to over-ride my common sense gene, costing me $42 and a trip to the hellhole, plus an extra day of mild angst.

On a good note, all the walking in the hellhole parking lot and self-contained city really upped the step count on the pedometer, and I reached 6,000 yesterday. Today I shot for 7,000 and made it. Right now I'm wearing 7015 steps on my waist! I've drastically upped my steps at work by going out one door, going around the building and in a different door to get to the bathroom or another office, then back out again to get back to my office (when time allows.) This will work until it gets too hot. Or rains. Or I don't have time.

I love my pedometer! I'm pleased with my contraption! Need a boost, anyone?