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Pastimes : Don't Ask Rambi -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: JF Quinnelly who wrote (65995)	11/30/2004 9:48:53 AM
From: Mac Con Ulaidh	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 71178

Oh no. Very silly of me, yes. It was the Falcon man. I think I get former resident points deducted for that.

To: JF Quinnelly who wrote (65995)	11/30/2004 8:43:32 PM
From: Rambi	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 71178

You will like this. Today I had to call my son for help. I think he enjoyed it, too. I was scheduled for a hair appointment at 1. This was a very important appointment. After all, I have two concerts and a benefit to play for in the next two weeks. I must look my best especially from my right side. To that end I have also started a diet by which I intend to lose 40 pounds by Friday. No, not next Friday, this Friday. I have lost one pound today. That means I have to lose 13 a day for the next three days. Wine has no fat; did you know that? Anyway, I went out to my car and it was dead. I don't know why. I suppose it had something to do with leaving my lights on, but really, this is a new battery, replaced the last time I left my lights on, and you would think it could handle a short 24 hour demand. but no, it was very dead. So I look around and there is no one to call. All my friends have moved, the only neighbors I knew, who would have owed me for feeding their damned cat for a year, have moved, I refuse to ask the neighbor next door who put up his Christmas decorations on Nov 6 for help. I call Dan, who is getting ready to go out of town. He sighs and says he will be here in half an hour. I call the hair place who say that color will be cancelled, but they can still cut if I get there in an hour. Dan arrives. We start the car, but it dies again. He says I really killed it. I don't exactly understand this. How many types of death does a battery have? Is it like a cat? Does it have nine lives? Or is it like someone getting those paddles in the ER? (Going to 400! Stand back!) He says, why didn't you take one of the other cars? There are three cars in our driveway. One is mine. One is Dan's old 93 240z, one is CW's old Nissan that I wouldn't be caught dead in at Town Square. I have no keys, I whine. So we find the keys to all these cars, leaving my car running. He says to take one of the other cars and then test mine when I get home. He leaves. I decide the 240z at least has a certain ancient convertible cachet and I will take that. For some reason, the driver's side is parked up against a tree and I have to crawl over the gear shift from the passenger side. The car is dead. I crawl out and limp to CW's car. It is dead. Not only that, but when I pull out the key it starts making this weird dinging noise and won't stop. I go inside and call CW. "Your car is dead, but it's making this weird noise at me". He panics. "What did you do to it? I just had that car repaired so I could sell it!" (It occurs to me that it's funny how he is selling it when we bought it, but now is not the time to bring that up) It's dinging, I say, apologetically, since I am sure I did it. "Oh, yeah, well when they fixed the starter, they did something to it, you don't have to push the little button to take the key out, but if you don't and take the key out, it sets off an alarm." Right. I take the phone with me to the car, which is still beeping and put the key back in, push the button, remove key, and the dinging stops. But the car still won't start. Great. At least my car is still running. CW says to call him if I get stuck at the stylist's. He will come jumpstart me. He reminds me that I once made fun of him in a column when I had to go to the high school to jumpstart him. I was so nervous at the salon I left the chair several times to go start my car. Mark, the receptionist, got all upset because I said I was sure he could give me a jump. He got all pale. My stylist said "Nono, we'll find someone else. Mark doesn't do mechanics." I said, really? Mark said, Look at me! I work in a hair salon! What do you think? The car started. CW called to make sure I was all right twice. He was very solicitous. I have a theory that I did NOT leave the lights on, that our home was under alien attack last night and we didn't notice because we have just replaced all the bulbs-- finally-- in our Victorian lamppost (all but one were out, and Dan said he was waiting for the last one to go so we could start even) and the light is sort of blinding so we wouldn't notice a strong beam from above. Those alien searchlights always short out cars and electronic instruments, as you know if you ever watched Close Encounters, and why else would all three of our cars be dead. OK, so Dan's ran this morning but his is brandnew and probably has more ability to withstand alien invasions. I am hoping I wasn't probed.