Editorial
Front Page - Friday, November 13, 2009
Are We There Yet?
The mechanic
Jay Edwards
“Some men are Baptists, others Catholics, my father was an Oldsmobile man.” (A Christmas Story)
So I’m driving home last Thursday afternoon feeling pretty good as I weave my way through the heavy flow headed west, when all of a sudden my digital dash lights up like a western Mississippi slot machine.
I wasn’t far from my house, and the engine was running and not overheating, so I kept going. I pulled into my driveway, turned off the car off, and immediately tried starting it again. All I got in response was a clicking sound and some heavy static on the radio. “Not again,” and “I hate cars,” were the thoughts running through my head.
I hoped it was the battery and planned to put in a new one on Saturday morning. Unfortunately we have other cars, and so getting to work the next day wasn’t a problem.
I got up Saturday and headed out to Wal-Mart to buy a battery. I knew this was a job I could do myself because I had done it a couple of months earlier on my wife Kathy’s Honda, however one of the differences in her car and mine (a 1997 DeVille I bought from my brother-in-law, who bought it from his mother-in-law) was that there is a black metal plate covering half of my battery. So I convinced myself that a shiny new ratchet set was also needed.
I had removed the plate and was about to tackle the battery when my phone rang. It was my mom. “What are you doing?” came the question. When I told her, her response was probably the same as if I’d said both my legs were broken, “Oh bless your heart.”
“It’s OK mom,” I said. But I knew she was remembering 32 years ago when I was changing the oil in my car on our driveway and decided to move it into the shade, but forgot to put the plug back in the oil pan first. When I was finished that day it looked like the Exxon Valdez had taken a shortcut through our yard.
I got off the phone after ruining my mother’s Saturday and tried to remove the battery. But it was not happening. As beautiful as my new ratchet set looked out there shining in the early spring sun, I just couldn’t get it to work.
My next option was to try and jump it and head back to Wal-Mart, which I did. Kathy followed me. When I got there, one of Wal-Mart’s finest named Chris came over to help. I told him the battery I bought from them less than an hour before was in the trunk and I needed them to install it. I picked up on his concerned look and offered to show him a receipt, but he waved it off and said they’d take care of it. I walked into the store to find Kathy.
We finished shopping, but my car wasn’t ready so we headed home. A few hours later she took me back to Wal-Mart for the third time that day and I went in to pay. Chris punched a few numbers in his computer and handed me a receipt that said “balance due – $0.” I pointed this out to him, but he just smiled and said, “Oh we don’t charge to install our own batteries.” I thanked him and walked outside to my car, thinking that maybe my mom was right to be worried.
When I arrived home I checked in the trunk to see if they had remembered to put on the plate that went over the battery. It lay there in my trunk. Also in the trunk, and more distressing, was the brand-new battery I had bought earlier that day. I opened the car’s hood, expecting to see my old battery. But there was a bright new yellow one that matched the one in my trunk. Then I laughed, and went inside to tell Kathy I was headed back to Wal-Mart. •••
“When Bismarck was chancellor of Germany in the 1870’s he observed that virtually all of his powerful enemies were men who were 65 years old or older. He persuaded the German legislature to pass legislation making 65 the mandatory age for retirement.
It had nothing whatever to do with a decline in their mental faculties or a drop-off in productivity. For some strange reason other countries in Europe followed suit, and the policy was eventually adopted in America. What an absolute tragedy to encourage people to quit when they are at the peak of their intellect, wisdom and experience! Could that be the reason that the only time the Bible mentions retirement it is as a punishment?” — Zig Ziglar
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