Alternating

First I got stranded when the jeep failed to start when I went out to run errands at lunch. Then a few weeks ago I was stranded at the library when the jeep failed to start again. The library here in Podunk is right by the police station. A cop was in the parking lot and he tried to get the jeep started and to stay running. No dice.

The library is 2 miles from home, and it was a rare night that Todd was home before me. He came out and got the car to, kinda, stay running and he drove it home. Then it sat in the driveway until we got the chance to replace the alternator with one that, um, alternates?

I took turns driving Todd’s bitchen Acura, and our big red pickup truck, a.k.a the meat wagon, to and from work. I got home in the truck one day and said “You know, I am going to stack that firewood over there, and I am going to crank up my iPod inside the truck and rock out while I do it.” And then the music stopped a half hour later. And then the truck wouldn’t start anymore, because listening to music for a half a fricken hour in the truck drains the battery. (Does that sound ridiculously short to anyone else?)

“So, this only tells me that if I took the bus to work, the damn thing would break down and I’d strand dozens of people, that’s how bad my luck is with cars right now,” I complained to my sister on the phone.

“Don’t say that,” she laughed. “I am sitting in my car listening to the radio while the kids have soccer. With your luck you’re going to strand me now too.” But her car actually started though, because she’s got way better luck with those things than I do.

I am married to MacGuyver, and he replaced my alternator on Saturday, while simultaneously preventing a nuclear reactor from melting down and stopping a runaway freight train from derailing and plowing into an animal shelter filled with newborn puppies. Well, not really, but when you’re married to MacGuyver everything he does is astoundingly cool like that. And this morning on the way to work I was able to participate in the jeep wave again.