A sunny day to do some stripping…

On Saturday I had a fantastic, wonderful day.  I taught two classes back to back, went for a three mile run and then immediately jumped into the hot room for my own practice.  I got all nice and clean and then headed out the door to go get Chris from work.  I jumped in the car feeling all sassy and turned the key.  Nothing.  Absolutely nothing.  Utterly confused I checked to make sure that the lights had not been left on.  The lights were off.  Some how or another I must have managed to drain the battery but had no idea how.  I did not have time to sit around and think too deeply about how it happened, I just needed a jump.  Luckily Melrose is chock full of people who work with Chris and also luckily, one of them was home.  We hooked up the jumper cables and tried to start the car.  Nothing.  Realizing that there were two batteries we hooked it up to the other battery.  Nothing.  Now I began to sweat because if this car broke down it would not be a pretty thing since we only have one car and do not have four thousand dollars sitting around to replace it.  Now I do not know anything about cars so I did not even attempt to look under the hood to try and spot the culprit.  All I could do was accept Neil’s gracious offer to let me use his car to get Chris from work.
I was disappointed that I now had to offer Chris the bad news instead of just a happy, smiling me.  I especially was sorry to have to tell him that it was not just the battery, since we tried jumping both of them without any success.  To further our plight, the next day was Sunday and in the Bahamas nothing much more than grocery stores and bars are open on Sunday so there was not much of a chance that we would find an auto parts store or a mechanic open.  And the cherry on top of it all?  I teach a 6 am class on Monday morning.  I repeat, I know nothing about cars and so I had no way to even guess what the issue was and so decided to not jump to any conclusions until Chris popped the hood and gave his verdict.  We came home and thanks to daylight savings time had plenty of sunlight left in the day.  Turns out that it only took Chris a brief moment to diagnose the problem.
“Okay race car driver, I thought you said you hadn’t been taking corners fast.”
To my defense, I really had not been taking corners any faster than I usually do and I would not qualify my driving as reckless.  Unfortunately, the evidence worked against me.
“The whole battery slid over and snapped this bracket completely off!  Of course it wouldn’t start and a jump didn’t work.  Didn’t you notice that the thing was broken?”
Again to my defense, it was Neil that connected the cables.  Although I admit that my eyes had peeked at the battery as well and had not caught that it was completely disconnected from the engine.  I will take this moment, now being sure that it was only a battery-related problem, to point out that karma completely failed me in this department.  Only a week prior I had given a stranger a jump in the grocery store parking lot.  Surely that should have deposited at least a few bucks into my car karma account.  This, however, was one of those sad reminders that the universe does not work on a sort of simple checks and balances.  Apparently I took a corner too quickly and no amount of good deeds for fellow car owners was going to save me from snapping that bracket.  Physics wins in the end.
“At least it is something stupid and not a short.  Can you think of anything metal that we have that has two holes in it?”
“Only thing that comes to mind is a pop tab.  And that is no good.”
“No, it needs to be steel or copper.”
Our hunt around the car and the apartment was fruitless and we came back inside defeated for the evening.  Chris went into the yoga room to practice and I sat down to read.  An hour and a half later Chris announced that he had found a possible solution to our problem.  We were going to go strip car parts off an abandoned car that had been sitting two miles down the road for several months.
Sunday morning arrived, and we slept through most of it but immediately after a breakfast of banana pancakes we grabbed the pliers and screwdriver and started the two mile trek to the rusted out, abandoned Oldsmobile.  Walking along the side the road is not the safest endeavor since sidewalks are a feature only found in the wealthier, touristy parts of the island.  Speed limits have no meaning here and while some cars sail down the windy two lane road at breakneck speed others creep along, seemingly no faster than their cars idle.  WIth the limited visibility around bends this is a dangerous combination and can turn out badly for anyone strolling along the shoulder.  With this in mind, I was quite happy to see white bags of clippings lining the side of the road where overgrown brush had until recently hugged the blacktop.  The sun was shining and the wind was blowing just enough to have a cooling effect without becoming nettlesome.  I had to hand it to this Sunday morning.  Sleeping in, banana pancakes, unpaved sidewalks and sunshine.
Reaching the Oldsmobile took climbing over a dilapidated chain link fence and winding our way through knee-high brittle grass.  There it was on the top of a knoll as non-sequitur as the circular stone landscaping feature next to which it was situated.  There, inside its rusty innards Chris found the wire to which the bracket we needed had been attached.  Someone else had beaten us to our bracket and probably only took it because cutting the wire was easier than unscrewing the attachment.  I wonder if they know what a valuable piece they carried away with them that day.  Fortunately, Chris is one of those problem-solver types and was not easily discouraged.  We poked around the stripped car for a while longer until Chris saw the solution in what I can only describe as a wire attached to a steel washer.  He attacked the wire about four inches from the washer with the pair of pliers.  We had not thought to bring a tool for cutting, but with resolute pinching and twisting, Chris had soon separated the needed piece from the rest.
Our walk back was just as sunny as our walk there, made even more so perhaps by the possibility of a running car on the horizon.  Chatting merrily on the jaunt home, we were back in no time at all it seemed.  Chris popped the hood, inserted the wires into the unbroken part of the bracket that still encircled the battery pole and hammered it down tightly with the help of the wrench.  He placed the washer between the washers that had been liberated when the bracket broke and screwed  all three together.  He hopped into the front seat of the car, turned the key and the Beast roared to life.  I let out a grateful sigh and promised to take corners with more care.  Despite it being Sunday, Chris had come through and figured out how to get me to work the next morning and the process had even been rather enjoyable.  Thank the Bahamas for sunny days and abandoned Oldsmobiles.  Even if, as it turns out, a thunderstorm chased all my morning yogis away and my shoulders are tender from sunburn.