…an epic story of cold weather, near crushing defeat and then finally triumph?  No?  Oh, too bad, you’re going to hear it anyways.

I live in an apartment. Occasionally, they’ll let us know that they’re going to plow the parking lot and our cars have to be out at 8 am. No big deal, I’ll just take the car to work instead of the bus. 6 am, and the car…won’t…start.  Not ever rev rev rev, no go.  Like seriously short “eh eh eh,” no catch at all.  And, no one around to be me a jump.

6:30 am, no one around to give me a jump, etc etc etc.

Did I mention that with the wind, it’s -35 or 40?

So I stayed home from work to plead my case with the landlady. They have the choice of a $50 fine or towing. Please just give me the fine, I begged, I’ll take my shovel and shovel around and under my car, so you can’t tell the difference. Nope, we’re going to tow. Nope, we’re going to tow. Nope, we’re going to tow. She was seriously heartless. She’s like, I have a car too, and I got it moved. Well, excuuuuuuuse me for not being able to afford a new car. I’ve already had to put $1000 worth of repairs into it last year, and I have some more work that needs to be done. arguh!

At this point, I’m a blubbering mess.  The Squeakster attempts to calm me by jumping on my lap and butting my hand to snuggle with her.  Ah well, better go watch my car get towed.  Outside.  In the artic breeze.

I called up my husband at work (who doesn’t know how to drive and doesn’t know anything about cars) and called my landlady every name in the book in between sobs.  I’m trying not to swear, the husband doesn’t like when I swear, but I was so shaken up, he didn’t even point out the string of filth I was uttering.  That helped relieve my stress a bit, but my car was still stuck. So I call my dad up at work. He suggested I try to jump it, since it was too slow to catch apparently. Now it was 8:30 and there was no one around to give me a jump.

The temperature may have crept up to -32 by now.

Ah, but there is the little corner grocery store that I’ve been avoiding since I was nearly assaulted a few months ago. The owners are muslim and like me well enough. Maybe they’ll give me a jump.

So I dash over, frozen to the bone after being in and out of the cold for the better part of 2 hours, and ask for a jump. There’s only one guy in the store and for another moment, I’m almost crying again. But, thank God, but he lets me take his car!

This is the first time I’ve jumped my car by myself, so I hook it up like my friend’s husband did last time – both clamps on the borrowed car, red one on my battery and black one on the chasse. Nothing happened.

Call my dad, crying again. He suggests I put the black one on the battery and listen for their battery to go down. Ah ha, there are sparks, it’s working.

Thank God, it starts while I’m on the phone with my dad. I just completely break down and keep mumbling thank God, thank God, thank God, which freaks my dad out, lol. I’m kind of the religious freak in the family.

Now I have another dilemma. I have 2 running cars, one that I have to return. I can’t turn off my car, otherwise it may not start again. And my purse is up in the apartment. Thankfully the very nice Russian maintenance guy happens to be walking by. I run up and ask him if he can watch my car. He doesn’t understand English very well, and thought I wanted help pushing it. Luckily through gesturing, he understands and I manage to return the car and get my stuff.

Thank God. Now I have to bake cookies for the guy at the store and the maintenance guy. Maybe I’ll make cheese cake…and buy a new battery for my car.