Murphy's Law: Assault by Batteries

Note: Not our actual car

I can’t believe this happened. Our family cars held a union meeting and decided to go on strike.

A week ago, my husband took one of our cars --a Jeep - to a garage to see what it needed before submitting it for annual state inspection. No worries: we still had his beater car to drive. At the time of this writing, the Jeep is still in the garage, waiting for a new battery.

I think the Jeep and the Subaru were in cahoots in our driveway. The next week, I drove my husband to work so I could use the Subaru, his beater car, to do shopping. Later that day, I confidently got in the Subaru to pick him up at work.

I didn’t realize those little images on the instrument panel were serious when they said the engine was hot. Couldn’t I push it a little further till I got to his workplace? Bad idea

Just fifteen minutes from his workplace, I stopped at a red light. Simultaneously the engine died, and clouds of white smoke billowed from under the hood.

A man and wife appeared at my window. “Do you need help?”

“Um, yes. I’m getting ready to call a tow truck. But I’m in a dangerous place at this intersection.”

Within minutes, three people pulled over and pushed my car around the corner, out of traffic. And when I called the tow truck, one of the “human angels” described my exact location to the driver of the truck. Thank you, Lord!  Did I mention my phone battery was running down?

“I found your trouble,” the tow truck driver said. “Your radiator cap blew off.” Actually, that was the least of my troubles. The engine blew up.

Two vehicles out of commission, a pickup truck to go. I should mention that we drive older vehicles that are not under warranty. We keep an old pickup truck to haul trash and debris for us and family members.

The next week we drove the truck thirty minutes away to haul yard debris for one of our daughters. On the way home we stopped at a feed store and noticed a special event—a small petting zoo.

That spurred a phone call to daughter number one’s sister, daughter number two. “Hey, why don’t you bring our grandson over to see the animals?” we said.

“I’ll be there in a few minutes,” she told us.

Daughter number two dropped off the little fellow and returned home to finish cleaning her house.

After several minutes, the grandson was ready to go home. Whereupon, remembering its whispered agreement with the Jeep, the truck dutifully refused to start.

Another phone call to daughter number two. “Could you bring jumper cables? The truck won’t start."

Long story short: the battery lasted only a few miles and died again after we shut off the engine.

That meant borrowing daughter number two’s car to go buy a new battery for the truck.

And because daughter number one was on vacation elsewhere, we decided to borrow her car so my husband could drive to work in a fuel-efficient way until she returns. I could drive the truck back to our place.

Leaving for church the next day, we sauntered out to our daughter’s car and—you guessed it—the battery was dead.

We had to pick up a ninety-two-year-old lady in our truck—the one with no running boards.

Our daughter’s little car did start after that, and we thought we were home free. That was before today. On the way to a sixty-mile trip to meet a friend, my husband noticed this little foreign car was in trouble.

A diagnostic test confirmed his worst fears: its battery also needed replaced. And the battery on his cell phone was running down too.

Someone said this heat wave has been hard on batteries. I firmly believe it. But a beater car that’s toast, three vehicles and a phone with dead batteries?  Okay, Murphy, you’ve made your point. Some things cease to be funny after a while.

Your turn. Any crazy experiences with vehicles? Use the comment section below and tell us about it.