Today was an adventure day, as much as I didn't want it to be. The company picnic was today. I figured I would hit Best Buy quick to see if the new 5.75G iPods were in and then head straight over to the picnic for lunch.
However, when I came out of Best Buy the Malibu wouldn't start. At all. It was totally dead.
I walked to the nearby gas stations but they were useless, so I had to call a tow truck. It eventually showed up and the guy broke out a battery booster, and after two attempts we got the engine running. However, when he removed the booster the engine died again. Tow Truck Guy declared the alternator broken, so I had him load the Malibu up onto his truck in the middle of the parking lot, causing a bit of commotion.
Tow Truck Guy kindly hauls my sorry ass over to Sears (saw a Ferrari 360 on the way) and dumps me in their repair bay, effectively allowing me to jump the line. After I settle with Tow Truck Guy, Sears Guy runs some more thorough tests and said it was the battery that was bad after all.
I went to pass the time in the waiting room, where a very static-y TV was showing U-O whoop on U-M, a game I didn't think I was going to catch any of. I also read an interesting article in one of the magazines about the roots of GM racing. I had a bag of salty stuff from the vending machine, which combined with the emergency Mt. Dew I had in the car amounted to everything I'd eaten so far today.
At one point Sears Guy came back and said they'd discovered my serpentine belt was badly cracked. I told them the go ahead and fix it and then, since I'd never heard of the damn thing, checked to make sure it wasn't in the same category as headlight fluid. Turns out it does exist, so good catch, Sears Guy.
I wasn't the only one in automotive purgatory. Another guy kept wandering in and out. After he wandered back in I asked him "So what are you in for?" So I talked with him a little bit. Mostly about how we wanted U-M to lose. Same with some of the other Sears Guys who were checking the score. One of them was once a Buckeye, so we were united by our common enemy. I thought the score was 12-7, but when I went to squint at it it looked more like 39-7. At that point the TV says "If you're wondering what the numbers at the top of the screen are, they are 39 and 7." Uncanny.
Eventually the Malibu is repaired and I am freed from automotive purgatory. I pull out of the Sears center and punch in the coordinates for the picnic in my GPS. Of course, following GPS to an unknown location is a tricky thing and I am nearly T-boned en route, but I eventually show up to the park around 4:30. I wander around for a little bit before finding a guy I know from work, who says the picnic has been over for half an hour. He then gives me a short tour, pointing where the tables of ribs and the raffle prizes were, and then shows me where the food was, which is now reduced to trays of baked beans.
So I got hosed. And now I have to spend all Monday explaining why I skipped the picnic.
And no, the new iPods aren't in yet. Lame.
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