Car Trouble

My car didn't start yesterday morning.

The first sign that something wasn't right occurred when I tried opening the car doors using the Electronic Key all cars seem to come with these days. Nothing happened when I clicked on the little unlocked padlock that normally opens all the car doors. In vain, I tried again and again and again, until I eventually opened the driver door manually, put the key in the ignition and turned it. Nothing. Not even a hiss. Nothing. Dead silence.

o_O

Since it's only 1 year old, I was rather annoyed. In fury, I called a cab and paid $15 to get to work. My friend and co-worker Tony, who is from Ghana, dropped me at home, and told me what to do.

He thinks I left the lights on and burned out the battery, so I need to jump-start the car with one of those jumper cables, and that my car alternator would keep charging the car after I got the first start. I swore I didn't leave the lights on - I unquestionably have OCD, and I have a checklist for almost every activity I do: leaving the house (check that all lights are out, oven is off, fire alarm in place, taps in the bathroom and kitchen are off, sockets are clear of equipment), leaving the car (check that lights in the car are out, check that lights outside the car are off, check that the car is in Park, check that Emergency Brake is drawn, etc). I could not, I insisted, possibly have left the lights on.

I called the dealership and they (very generously) sent over a guy to jump start the car.

As I expected, Tony was right. Tony is almost always right. I am forever amazed at the amount of stuff he knows - about life, about plant work, about engineering, about manufacturing, about food processing... it's rather amazing.

Anyway, back to my car...

A few months ago I drove to Maple Glen, Pennsylvania. After running a few errands, I found out that my car would not start. I would turn the key in the ignition, and instead of the sound of the engine kicking to life, all I got was a sluggish crank, a sure sign that something was seriously wrong. I noticed, also, that there was a strange light on my dashboard: a green key that flashed every 5-10 seconds. I hadn't seen this key before, and if nothing else, I regard myself as an occasionally observant person - observant enough, I thought, to notice when a new icon appeared on my dashboard. After several fruitless attempts to start the car, I turned to that veritable solution to all of modern man's problems: the iPhone.

I whipped out my iPhone and googled the symptoms: 'Car won't start, green key, Honda Civic, 2009'.

Sure enough, I was directed to a messageboard, where I was treated to the pearls of wisdom that litter the Internet.

One of the messages I saw said that my car might no longer recognize my car keys, and that I should try using the spare keys. Since the spare keys were 60 miles away in Vineland, NJ I dismissed this piece of advice and scrolled through to find some suggestion that could help me out of my predicament without requiring that I call AAA.

One such nugget of wisdom came from a man who claimed that my battery cable might have come loose, and that I should pop the hood and jiggle the cable. Like an idiot, I jumped out of the car and tried to pop the hood.

It was around this time that I realized that:

1) I have never popped my own car hood before. Think about this. A f*cking Engineer, who works in Manufacturing, relatively intelligent person, and she has no idea how to pop the hood. Great.
2) I was not sure where to pop the hood. My instincts told me to Google it (Lord help us all!), but after searching for about 10 seconds, I found the lever that pops the hood.
3) I looked at the battery and found that the wires were in place. Nevertheless, I still - like an idiot - jiggled it.

What is wrong with this story?

Well, for one, if the battery cable was off, I would have been unable to see any blinking icons on my dashboard because - well, the bleeding battery would not be connected and the dashboard would have no power. How could I not have known?

Anyway, the moral of the story is this: there is a lot of stupidity in every human being, and sometimes it takes smaller events to expose this.

Another really amazing thing for me is just the sheer amount of stuff I don't know. I spoke with one of the mechanics in my plant about the incident with the flashing green key in my car, and he was so amused by the whole thing, that I covered my face in embarrassment. He told me all I had to do when I saw the flashing green key was unlock my car and the car would have been fine. By stepping out of the car to pop the hood (and pressing the unlock key when I went back in), this is what I did - in an unknowing and roundabout sort of way. I just hadn't realized it.

What an air-head.