Cars suck, pass it on

I feel that for most of my audience, it should be pretty obvious, but car culture sucks. What used to be short jaunts to the corner store back in the first half of the 20th century is now an entire event. Better get dressed, gotta start your car, stock up on everything that you could possibly need, carry all of that in and store it away in your kitchen where you'll inevitably forget about it until later. Bleh. It's an executive dysfunction haver's worst nightmare.

But, you're wondering, what's making me rant about this on my blog now and not, say, a month or even several years ago? It's dead simple and it's the fact that I went through hell to get my car battery fixed.

The Battery Saga, Day 1

During the cold snap a few weeks ago I had to leave my car standing in the apartment complex's parking lot. There's not much I can do about that, having indoor, temperature-controlled parking is for the elite among us who can afford such extravagant luxuries as "a nice place to live." It snowed, it melted, I waited. I needed groceries, I needed bookshelves, et cetera, et cetera. So I walked up to my car, and to my surprise, it was dead. Not just ordinary dead, I mean dead dead. I couldn't even unlock the door to get in.

I pressed on. Got my neighbor to jumpstart my car (she was super nice), and drove off to the Walmart a few miles away to pick up some supplies. I got back to the car only to find out that the battery was dead again, Welp, I thought, must not have been far enough. Thankfully, Walmart has an auto care center so I was able to ask someone there to jump it again and I went back home. In hindsight, I probably should have asked for a battery replacement right there, but I couldn't have known at the time. I got back, my car died again after a patch of false hope. Great.

That's how it was until last weekend. I just sort of assumed that it was too cold for the battery to run, and I needed to drive further to get it charged up again. I enlisted the help of my mom (in the area) this time and just drove out to Best Buy. Nothing special about it in particular, I just needed somewhere relatively far to drive and that gave me about 30 minutes of movement to work with. I park in the parking lot, confident that this was going to be the thing to charge my car, and oh no. Dead again.

At this point I'm bracing for the worst as I head into the store anyway to maybe just walk around and look at stuff. I eventually give the customer service counter one of the most unusual requests ever: asking if someone could jumpstart my car. This results in the manager coming to my aid. He was super nice about it and got his pickup truck going only to find out that my battery was so gone that my car wouldn't even start.

I'm just out of options at this point. I pull up my insurance, ask for someone to help tow me, and call it a night, leaving my car in the parking lot after running it by the manager. Mom picks me back up, we go out for pizza as a family. I'm having to make plans for the next day on a weekend where I really needed to get some rest.

The Battery Saga, Day 2

Day 2! I was up relatively early after a sleepless night. I had one mission and it was to get back to my car and show up for the towing company to take the keys from me, while trying to work around my mom's schedule since she was the only one that could really get me anywhere without me having to blow a fortune on a rideshare. I get there at around 1 PM, where the company was able to send a tow truck early. I'm locked in. I'm ready.

When help arrives, the man jumpstarts my car and it starts working again. Hooray. This is just a thing that can happen, I guess. He tells me that there's a dead cell and to keep the car running until I can get the battery replaced. Luckily, there was an AutoZone not far from there so I booked it over there to finally end this battery saga once and for all.

Now, the thing that I didn't tell you is that my car is a luxury car. A 20 year old one to be exact, but still of a higher class. I was sold this one for $5,000, which I was able to save up because I was living at my parents' house but still making money at the time that I got it. I was told that it would be low maintenance, that it could go for a while. It seemed like a great deal, so I signed off on it! The car was mine.

The car's maintenance issues were now also mine.

One thing that I failed to realize that sealed my fate is that older cars, no matter what, need maintenance. And I just so happened to pick a car that is expensive to maintain. You could probably imagine my surprise when they looked up my car's make and model to find that the cheapest battery that I had was a whopping $250.

Needless to say, my next move was to call the closest Walmart with an auto care center and hurry over to it. I finally pull up after being bounced between departments and put on hold for fifteen minutes and confirming that they did in fact have a cheaper battery that worked with my car, and make my way into the building where I ask for a battery replacement and get told where to pull up. It's still under warranty. It's done. I am free. I walk up to my car, ready to end this mess once and for all.

I am now locked out of my car.

I begrudgingly consult my insurance app again and call for a locksmith. A mechanic at the Walmart beats me to it and pries open the door just enough to unlatch it and let me back in. I tell the locksmith that I get connected to that there's no need to come by anymore. I finally pull up, get the battery replaced, learn that oh it's still prorated and I need to pay $110 anyway.

Whatever. I'm tired. I fork over the money, drive straight home, and collapse. No more. I'm done.

So what did we learn from this experience?

Yeah it just kind of sucks

I shouldn't have to spend this much effort to be able to go places. I just want to be able to pop on over to the grocery store and grab what I need for dinner and get out. Instead I'm fumbling around trying to convince my dopamine-addled brain that I should probably get food and then finally do it only for the leafy greens that I bought to expire because I couldn't get myself to use that too and it's just a mess, okay?

The next city that I live in will be one with a functioning public transit system. This is horrendous.