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captainsblog10:30 Halloween night. The last of the "galoots" (as my mom always called the older kids who showed up after dark) had been and gone, and both of us had turned in. My iPhone was still in my car, and I was awakened when the landline rang. I ignored it at first, thinking it was a political robocall. Then, Eleanor's cell rang, and I knew something was up.
Emily, to be precise. Her car battery was dead- again from her lights left on, again because the ding-ding device to deter such a thing has been dead for months and had been diagnosed as a $900 computer repair that we passed on. I was less than helpful at that hour in that non-cogitive state. Eventually, it resorted to me yelling- partly out of frustration, but also because her phone was getting gorked in the rain and she couldn't hear me. Finally, a co-worker's mom came to the rescue and talked her through the red-to-positive/ black-to-negative drill and she got home to her apartment okay.
Friday came and went without any fallout from our fallout, but I was determined to make it right. Our local mechanic (who I'd asked to second-opinion the $900 quote) had mentioned the possibility of an aftermarket buzzer not tied to the car's computer, and I found a website with one roughly $5 Radio Shack part to do the job. Last night, I dropped the eight bucks (for a louder buzzer, yo), and Eleanor set out to devise the actual kludge late this morning....
and, ultimately, couldn't. The instructions I'd found were for a Honda, not translatable to either Em's Chevy or my Ford (never mind trying to do it on an electric car;), and it took her a second trip to Radio Shack and a referral from them to AutoZone to acquire an additional part. Even that, though, would be impossible to test until we could actually try it out on Emily's fusebox.
So I'm going to take a crack at it next week when I'm there for work. It's still a relatively simple number of steps to get the buzzer to buzz once connected to electricity, but it's entirely unknown whether her fusebox will have the right type of connection for this particular There I Fixed It to work.
In the meantime, we've both suggested a post-it note with the words TURN YOUR HEADLIGHTS OFF on her dashboard. Why, when we were driving our first cars, we didn't even have post-its. Or words. Maybe not even dashboards. Get off my lawn.
Emily, to be precise. Her car battery was dead- again from her lights left on, again because the ding-ding device to deter such a thing has been dead for months and had been diagnosed as a $900 computer repair that we passed on. I was less than helpful at that hour in that non-cogitive state. Eventually, it resorted to me yelling- partly out of frustration, but also because her phone was getting gorked in the rain and she couldn't hear me. Finally, a co-worker's mom came to the rescue and talked her through the red-to-positive/ black-to-negative drill and she got home to her apartment okay.
Friday came and went without any fallout from our fallout, but I was determined to make it right. Our local mechanic (who I'd asked to second-opinion the $900 quote) had mentioned the possibility of an aftermarket buzzer not tied to the car's computer, and I found a website with one roughly $5 Radio Shack part to do the job. Last night, I dropped the eight bucks (for a louder buzzer, yo), and Eleanor set out to devise the actual kludge late this morning....
and, ultimately, couldn't. The instructions I'd found were for a Honda, not translatable to either Em's Chevy or my Ford (never mind trying to do it on an electric car;), and it took her a second trip to Radio Shack and a referral from them to AutoZone to acquire an additional part. Even that, though, would be impossible to test until we could actually try it out on Emily's fusebox.
So I'm going to take a crack at it next week when I'm there for work. It's still a relatively simple number of steps to get the buzzer to buzz once connected to electricity, but it's entirely unknown whether her fusebox will have the right type of connection for this particular There I Fixed It to work.
In the meantime, we've both suggested a post-it note with the words TURN YOUR HEADLIGHTS OFF on her dashboard. Why, when we were driving our first cars, we didn't even have post-its. Or words. Maybe not even dashboards. Get off my lawn.
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Date: 2013-11-03 12:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-11-03 03:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-11-03 03:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-11-03 03:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-11-03 07:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-11-03 05:49 pm (UTC)I'm in hysterics, here...
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Date: 2013-11-05 12:24 am (UTC)This reminds me how we were once walking to a friend's grandparents' village from the bus stop in the next village, and we met a guy who asked him, "Why didn't you call me on my cellphone to take you with the donkey cart". :D We found the combination of the cellphone and the donkey cart very amusing, and so did the rest of the company.