A Little Help... too much to ask?

[tangentgirl]

I'm still a little miffed about the lack of help I received last night when I came out to my car and realized my car wouldn't start. No lights were left on or anything. I hoped it was my battery. (I still hope it's just my battery... I'll find out soon enough.)

I have a 45 minute drive home from work. I knew I wasn't going to get someone to drive me all the way home, but I figured that someone might volunteer to help me jump start my car. NOPE!

Of course, my car is parked inconviently for a jump start... with cars on either side of it belonging to who knows who. My jumper cables are fairly long - maybe they'd reach across the median thing in front of my car. I doubted it, but maybe. I got out my cables and attached them and stretched them to see if it would be possible. Nope!

Okay... I go into work and let it be known that my car won't start and I'm going to have to push my car out of the parking spot to get a jump. I have cables, can anyone help me.

**** (insert sound of crickets here) ***

For a minute I curse my luck of not being hot and skinny. There are certain advantages to being beautiful. Getting out of speeding tickets, make more tips, and have men falling over themselves to show how manly they are by changing a car battery for you.

Finally this guy says, if you have cables, you can use my car. SCORE, right? WRONG! He throws me his keys. I reiterate the putting my car in neutral and having to push it thing. Doesn't care. An Angel answers my prayers though and one of the cars next to me is backing out.

Long story short. It takes me forever to figure out how to get his seat back, lights on, etc... I finally get the kid's car next to mine. Try to jump my car and not having luck. Go back in and hope to heck that there is a flashlight somewhere. I finally can tell how to get his battery cover off and which end is positive/negative --- it's super corroded.

An HOUR later from when I discovered my car wouldn't start. I'm on my way home.

Now I have to go and buy a battery. Later. I'm sure a movie mark fan would have offered help!

[tamzcam]

I can totally sympathize with you on this. I was driving to work one morning and while waiting for a traffic light to turn green, my car just died. I tried and tried to get it started and it wouldn't. I was on a three lane road and the cars were starting to back log behind me. I proceeded to get out and try and push (yeah right and I bet you can guess how successful I was with that). One smart mouthed lady yelled at me as she was going by in the turning lane, "You need to turn on your emergency flashers" (thanks for the tip lady). Finally, when I thought I was going to pass out from my exertions, two guys got out and helped me push it into a parking lot.

On a similar vein, my husband was on a six lane highway in Virginia when the van he was driving died and he had to push it onto the emergency lane - this was across the other two lanes with traffic whizzing by him. I don't know how he managed it and of course, no one stopped to help.

Hopefully it is just your battery. If it's the alternator or regulator, your looking at spending a few bucks.

[MsCali]

This is why I highly suggest having AAA (or similar coverage on your car insurance). It's saved me several times, including once at 2 am at the airport parking garage, when my car wouldn't start because it had sat there without being started for 2 weeks and nobody would give me a jump (there was also the time I got two flat tires at once...and the times my car wouldn't start in my driveway, and that one time my battery actually died and I had to get a new one...oh, and that other time I had a flat tire...yeah, I've really gotten my money's worth out of that AAA membership).

I wouldn't jump start someone else's car for them - it's just not always good for your car to do that. I am, however, willing to call AAA on my account for people if I know them and have the services available (as long as the account holder is there, it doesn't matter if the car belongs to someone else or not).