Auto reflections

My neighbors are in Turkey. They’ve been there since 9 August and have no ETA for returning. In their absence, I’m watering their basil and a couple of other plants, and I’m babysitting their 2019 VW Tiguan.

That car hates me. Since it’s 18 years younger than my Saab, and at least 30% wider, I have about a squillion electronic nannies that scream at me as I try to do things like reverse or change lanes. And I frankly am never quite sure where its wide ass is, so I try to only go places where I can pull through two parking slots. Even so, I often do a completely crap job of parking.

Also, it does that nasty thing at stoplights: when you push the brakes all the way in, the engine cuts off. It restarts when you take your foot off the brake. That thing makes me crazy.

The first week of this stint, the check engine light came on. As you might imagine, that freaked me out. (Although my car sometimes does that and it’s only once been something that really was an emergency. Still, you never know.)

Eventually it went back off again. But last week the battery died. I’ve got jumper cables, but that’s really a two-person job, because the transmitting engine needs to be gunned as you’re starting the receiving engine. A couple of friends came out and did it, and I proceeded to drive around the area for 45 minutes.

I thought all was well. And I’ve driven it around town a few times since.

However.

Yesterday I took Das Auto to Costco to pick up a few pounds of butter and a crate of spinach. Then I hit their gas station to put in some petrol to replace what I’d used up. And it refused to start. Just dead.

The attendant pushed me out to a parking spot and called on the tire people to send someone out to jump the battery. Well, he came, eventually, but didn’t really know how to use the charger. So I called AAA.

That guy came in about 30 minutes, tested the (original) battery and declared it bad and needing to be replaced. I explained about not being the owner, and said I’d notify them, so he jumped the engine and I drove home.

Made it home and put away the comestibles. Sent the owners an email with the options and now I’m awaiting instructions.

Here’s the thing, though: as I was sat in someone else’s car for nearly an hour (for first the Costco guys and then AAA), with nothing to read and only the carts of other shoppers passing by me to analyze, I realized that I was experiencing the proof of the Theory of Relativity. That hour lasted about three weeks for me.

And Costco shoppers buy a crap ton of plastic bags of what appears to be junk food.

 

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