Today was a pet peeve day. And it came as a surprise.  It was a pet peeve that I had almost forgotten about. Car troubles. I figure for the amount of money we spend on acquiring automobiles, once we acquire them, we shouldn’t have to spend another dime. They should just work… like, all the time.

This morning mine didn’t.  I love my SRX. It’s a 2012 and I haven’t had one iota of a problem with it. That’s been over 5 years and 95,000 miles. A perfect record. No complaints…. until this morning. I loaded it up; went to start it up to drive to work; and I heard a sound that I sometimes make whenever I try to get up out of the recliner after binge watching a favorite show for an episode too many.

But the sound is irrelevant. The point is, it didn’t start. No time to mess with it. I had my wife drive me to the studio and she took me home at the end of the day. Thinking that maybe my car had become something of a late sleeper, I tried it when I got home. Absolutely no sound. In my mind, I could not stop the thought… it’s dead. After all, it would not be the first car that breathed its death rattle in my presence. My beloved Jeep Cherokee comes immediately to mind… may it rest in peace. But that’s another and much longer story. Still, even with all the car experiences I’ve had, I could not help thinking… she’s gone too young.

I attached jumper cables between my car and my wife’s. (That sounded a lot easier than it was.) It took me 30 minutes in Florida heat just to find the battery on the SRX. It was hidden under a device cover I swear I saw once on Star Trek (Next Generation, not the 60s original.)

I took a beer break while I let it charge another 30 minutes before I gave it a try. I turned the key or, more accurately, pushed the button. IT LIVES! The engine started and continued to run on its own. I immediately drove it to the auto parts store for a battery diagnostic. They could find nothing wrong with it. I mean, absolutely nothing. I came to them with a perfect battery.

So suddenly… all eyes were on me. I must have done something stupid. I must have done something really lame-brained to drain a perfectly good battery. To their credit, the store employees said or did nothing to make me feel this… they didn’t have to. I’m well aware of my own inadequacies. Which is why this is a pet peeve. I hate being thrust in situations in which I am ill-equipped to succeed. My lack of knowledge of auto mechanics is rivaled only by my lack of knowledge of astrophysics. But since I am rarely called upon to solve problems dealing with quantum theories, the latter never embarrasses me. The former is a sore spot residing squarely upon my masculinity.

But the good news is that I left the auto parts store with the instruction to drive the car around for 30 minutes to recharge the battery. And other than the loss of points on my man card, there was no other out of pocket expense.

So all’s well that ends well… until we wake up tomorrow and try to start the car.

Michael Ondrasik and Home Video Studio of Mount Dora specialize in the preservation of family memories through the digitalization of films, videotapes, audio recordings, photos, negatives, and slides. For more information, call 352-735-8550 or visit our website.