ehowton ◾ Service Battery System (Reply)

First of all, I'mma blame geekfriend. Why? Because I was having an eventful drive from Great Bend, Kansas to visit Jennifer during the week and was marveling at how fortunate I was to have such a great vehicle in which to do my extensive traveling. The weather was clear, sunny, dry, and cool - perfect driving weather. I was musing to myself geekfriend had noted this car had been giving me a lot of trouble and hardly seemed worth it, but once all the kinks had been worked out I really hadn't had a spot a trouble in quite a while.

I was pulling into South Coffeyville, Oklahoma when the check battery light on my car came on with the message, "Service Battery System." Assuming that would light up in the car until I did so, I made a mental note to get it into service when I returned home as there are no dealerships in either South Coffeyville, Oklahoma, nor nearby Coffeyville, Kansas. I picked up Jennifer for dinner and as we were driving to our favorite Mexican restaurant, my cruise control turned itself off. Then the radio powered off. Then the A/C stopped running. I lost power steering, and finally, the torque converter started engaging/disengaging causing the car to surge and slow every second. When I pulled into the parking spot, the car would not start.

Her kids picked us up after dinner and drove us home and the next morning I jumped the vehicle. It started right away! Perhaps this was simply the need for something as innocuous as a new battery? Then the car died. I started it again, and again it died. Three times it denied me, much as Peter denied Christ. I used USAA's online roadside assistance to dispatch a tow to the Chevrolet dealership in Independence, Kansas and contacted them of its pending arrival.

In other news - and this may greatly surprise many of you - I fucked up at work several weeks back. First time in a decade I've done so, so figure I can't fuck up again for another ten years. Suffice it to say I am working production maintenance this Saturday and my laptop is four hours away. I may have to bribe my daughter to make the 8-hour round trip to save me from myself because this is one production maintenance I cannot miss.