Need a New Battery

Abandoned
Photo by SB

Today, I worked out for the first time since December. I challenged and conquered the Stair Master at the gym. The battle lasted 20 minutes and was epic with its changes in speeds and paces. Thankfully, I watched TV during the duel, which helped take my mind off of how much strength and stamina I had lost in the past four months. After that monumental achievement, I lifted weights for a bit and then hit the shower. Once there I made a sad discovery... as I wrapped the towel around my waste, I noticed I did not have as much slack in the tuck at the top as it did last year. Sigh.

After enjoying a healthy turkey sandwich for lunch (sans mayo and cheese, lots of veggies and mustard) and a banana, I went back to work. It felt good to have pushed my metabolism up. I had much more energy than normal to complete my work tasks. It was like getting a new battery for myself.

Now the ironic part (well, I am not sure if it is ironic, maybe just coincidental), the battery in my truck died. This evening I wanted to take my old truck for a spin and show its shiny new paint job to my auto body repair teacher. First I flooded the engine. Since it had sat for a month with out starting, the old battery was near dead. My trying to crank it over with a flooded engine was the coup de grace.

I had to push the 2.4 ton behomoth out of my single lane drive way and onto the street with my wife steering it so we could get our Subaru nosed up to it for a jump start. Ann is amazingly strong. I say this because this old beast has manual steering and we were moving slow. I prefer to call it "armstrong" steering instead of "manual" steering. After pushing it out into the narrow street, the truck stopped in the trough of the rain gutter at a 45 degree angle to the street. I tried pushing with all my might, but I could not roll it forward or back. Just as I was about to get pissed and do something stupid, like pull it with my Subaru, a short blond mom (in her thirties I would guess) came to my rescue. She was driving by in her mid 90's BMW filled with two little kids and stopped to ask if I needed help. Hell, I don't have too much pride so I accepted. Mom and I braced ourselved on the front bumper and pushed as my wife steered the beast in an arc. I was amazed at how strong these two women were. We were pushing the truck up twenty feet up the gradual hill that my street follows. At that point the truck was pointed downhill. Mom and I went to the back end and lightly nudged the truck and gravity took over and my wife parallel parked it.

The mom then turned to her two small boys and flexed her muscles and they cheered for her and clapped their little hands. I bet they will always remember the day their mom pushed a big truck out of the way.

Unfortunately, the jumpstart plan failed. I went and bought a new battery and installed it. After letting the flooded engine set, I tried starting it. It coughed to life, fighting to turn over in it's fuel-rich state. After running rough for few seconds the familiar manly throbbing V8 regained it's composure and was ready for duty.

My shop teacher was pleased with the paint job and my work. I was pleased with it too. I think I was even more pleased with my overall day of working out, working hard at work, pushing a behemoth truck (with some needed help) and getting the old girl (Yes. My truck is a she, but she has a male engine. In a future post I will write about my hermaphroditic truck) running again.

Tomorrow, I jog. I am guessing it will be more of a shuffle than jog, but it will feel good.