Each Monday and Friday, Ed picks the girls up from school and takes them (and him) to the candy store. It’s a Kirk ritual.
On Friday, Grampa arrives as usual, gets the girls, they all walk back to the car and pile in.
Car won’t start.
Girls start crying. “Call Daddy!”
Ed calls me. I arrive 20 minutes later with the jumper cables.
I had to read my manual to figure out how to open the hood on my car. (Stop rolling your eyes, faithful readers. How often do you open the hoods of your cars????)
Ed attaches the cables to his battery and manages to clank the other two together when he’s bringing them over to my car. Sparks fly.
The girls, who are standing on the sidewalk, cry louder.
Ed and I found the positive (red) charge on my battery but couldn’t locate the negative one.
Girls are really crying now. Probably listening to Ed and me say things like: *#+#@*.
Along comes a gentleman dressed in traditional Indian clothes. Another gentleman comes out of his house which is across from where we parked.
They approach and say in perfect English, “Having trouble?” Ed says nothing and I practically hug them. To me, gentleman #2 sounds Russian.
Mr. Russia looks the situation over and says we can ground the negative charge anywhere and points to a bolt. The other man nods in agreement.
They must be nuts, I think.
Mr. Russia pushes everyone away, attaches the cable to the bolt and tells Ed to start his engine.
VOILA!
The girls pile into my car while I thank the gentlemen profusely. Then we head to the candy store. Ed drives home.
(Scene Break)
Sunday, Joe brings the girls for dinner. We repeat the story to him.
“I agree with the girls,” he says. “You should have called me.”
We handled it just fine, I thought. What does he think we are, a couple of incompetent old folks???
Ed’s car has started fine ever since. This was just a case of bad car karma.
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