Earlier this week I walked out of work, climbed into my car, did my usual checks, and pushed the start button. Nothing. Not a sluggish crank. Not a click. Dead. Just dead, dead.
Not fun. But not a crisis either.
Building security had a jump pack, and within a few minutes the car fired up and I was on my way. One of the things I like about newer cars is that you can pull up battery voltage, temperatures, all of it, right on the dash while you drive. So I watched the whole way home like a man reading a patient’s vitals. Everything stayed inside acceptable limits. My best guess was that I’d left the start button pressed that morning and let the battery drain slowly all day.
The next morning it was dead again in my own driveway. So much for that theory.
I didn’t miss work. I got home fifteen minutes late. A few days later I pulled the battery, carried it up to O’Reilly’s to have it tested, and bought a new one. That’s the whole inconvenience: one unplanned purchase and a little lost time.
Here’s what I noticed, though. Twenty years ago this would have ruined my evening. I’d have stewed about the expense, the hassle, the “why me, why today.” I’d have walked in the door wearing it.
This week I just didn’t.
I think it’s a sign of getting older. Age has made me more patient, and patience has given me room not to freak out. There’s a gap now between the thing that happens and how I respond to it, and I’ve learned to stand in that gap for a second before deciding what kind of day it’s going to be.
I have a car. It runs well. In four years and 71,000 miles, this is the first real problem it has given me. Everything else has been tires and oil changes, which is what maintenance is supposed to look like. One dead battery on a weekday afternoon doesn’t change any of that.
