Turn key and nothing...

This afternoon my car greeted me with a dead battery.

While most would see this with grumblings of the inconvenience this snafu put into my life, I am not seeing it that way.

You see, my car got the kids to their day camp on time. It was an early arrival day because they were going on a field trip to the city zoo today.

My car got me into work on time.

My car got me back to pick up the kids.

My car got us home so that we could quickly eat dinner.

My car got us to a local park where we attended a meeting with the Bear's new football coach and the rest of the team staff.

My car got us home and into a nice spot behind a fire hydrant so no one could park in front of me.

This is when the snafu happened.

I got out of the car and took a better look at how much space I had in front of me before I felt that I was too close to the hydrant. I figured I had another foot or two that I could move up. I handed the Princess the housekeys and the kids walked into towards the townhouse. Me? I got in the car to move it forward. I turned the key and....NADA.

Nothing happened! The battery was as dead as a smashed bug under your foot. I couldn't even press my clicker to lock the doors!

I was able to call my BIL who was available to switch out the battery. The kids and I walked over to their townhouse (which is about a block away) and my BIL and I got the dead battery out of my car. We headed to CostCo and discovered that they didn't carry my specific battery. Where to go next? Where to go? We drove over another 8 miles over to the Kragen (now O'Reilly) and found my battery. The guy behind the counter looked up my info and found that I indeed could get a discount on a new battery if the old one was not "chargeable". So we waited and waited for the machine to tell us that my old battery was indeed DEAD. We waited about 30 minutes. It was almost 9pm before I was able to buy a new battery.

I was ecstatic when the guy found that I had the Hubs had indeed purchased my old battery from Kragen. And it had a guarantee for like seven years. The Hubs got the battery in Aug 2009, so it lasted just under 2 years. So I only ended up paying $31 for a $95 battery. Woohoo!

My BIL got the new battery installed via flashlight power and my car now works! I am happy, happy, happy!!!

So while some might consider a dead battery a huge hassle, I am looking at today as a blessing. I was able to do all the things I needed to do and get to each place safely. I think that's all that matters. Don't you think?