A car named Donna. Why Donna? I have no idea. It’s the name that popped in my head when I looked at the car.
Donna is...
...well, Donna likes to piss me off.
My car is a Honda Insight. And the other day I went to start my Honda Insight and…nothing.
I’ve had issues with the car in the past.
It doesn’t like to start in extremely cold weather. It’ll offer a little puttering sound and refuse to turn on.
When I tried to turn it on this time it wasn’t extremely cold. And I realized as I turned the key that nothing was happening. Before it would at least offer a pathetic sound and now…nothing.
Then I remembered how I let Natalie play in the front seat of the car while I brought in groceries. Anything to keep her contained. And happy. I recalled how she liked to turn on the lights and…
...it hit me that she probably turned the light on, I didn’t know it and we had gone inside and left that light on.
So my battery was dead.
I panicked. If my husband were here I’d have raced inside and shouted, “Oh my God, it’s Donna! Help me!”
But he’s in Korea. So this meant I had to run to my neighbor’s house for help. I knocked on the door and the wife answered.
“Oh my God, it’s Donna! Help me!” I screeched.
Actually, no, I didn’t do this. I didn’t want to freak out the poor lady. It’s what I wanted to do but instead I said in a composed tone, “Does your husband know about cars?”
She nodded. “He’s not here though. I’ll send him over when he’s back.”
So I had to go back to my dead car. I don’t know why, but I tried to start it again as though the battery would magically come to life on its own.
I figured if I wanted it enough, it would happen.
This shows how much I know about cars.
I even opened the hood of the car and peered down at all the parts that I knew nothing about.
“If you could please work, that would be great,” I said. Yes, I had officially lost my mind. I was speaking to car parts that I’ve been known to refer to as “thingies.”
Here was my other worry: the car was in the garage. If it needed to be jumped, how could that happen?
I went back inside to check on the kids. I had put a movie on for them and they were happily watching it.
“Is the car still broken?” Tommy wanted to know. “What’s wrong? Is it the engine? Is it because it’s cold? Is it—”
“Tommy, please, I’m flustered as it is.” I started flipping through the car manual. Maybe there was some button I could push to get the car to start again. It was a hybrid, certainly it had to have extra special powers since it worked to help the environment and all that.
But I didn’t see anything about special powers or a special button.
Le sigh.
“I’m just tired of things not working,” I wailed to myself. It seems like ever since Tom went to Korea, things have been breaking. The couch, the computer, the TV, the car, my mind….
I started to cry and that was when there was a knock on my door.
Crap. The neighbor.
I quickly wiped my face so I wouldn’t scare him off. Men don’t like crying. My husband tends to get nervous when he sees my eyes well with tears. He’ll be like, “Oh, please don’t do that,” and practically toss the box of tissues at my face and run off.
The neighbor did a double take when he saw my face. I am an ugly crier. My face immediately turns bright red and it seems like everything on it gets all wet and gross.
“Hello,” I said, all businesslike. I made it seem like I wasn’t crying at all, lalala. I’m perfectly happy.
“Hello,” he said warily. “I hear you’re having car issues?” He looked like he wanted to add, “Please don’t cry in front of me.”
I nodded. “I do. I think the battery is dead.” I showed him how nothing happened when I stuck the key in the ignition. He said I should still be able to get the car in neutral so I could get it from the garage but my car is extra stubborn and wouldn’t do it. Everything was completely dead.
“Well,” the guy said, “I could string together jumper cables.”
So he did that and I had my fingers crossed, hoping it would work. If it didn’t, then what?
He got everything hooked up and suddenly my car came back to life. The light that I thought Natalie left on? Totally turned on in the car.
“That must be what was left on,” he said.
Ugh.
Then he told me to turn the key. I did and…my car turned on. Yay!
“Just keep it running for a bit and it should be fine,” he explained.
I wanted to toss my arms around his neck but that would been weird. Instead I said, “Thank you,” over and over again.
“You’re welcome,” he kept replying.
“Thank you, thank you, thank you,” I gushed. It was like I had Tourettes or something. I couldn’t stop saying the word.
“Uh. You’re welcome...” He left pretty quickly.
I burst into the house to tell the kids the good news and found this:
Reason number 3943209 why you NEVER leave children alone.
Oh well. At least my car works again.
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