Car Troubles

My car, like a petulant child, refuses to start. Which is understandable. It's a child that gets a bath once every six months, has a bump on its forehead (an accident!), and gets left in the cold except for the occasions it gets taken to the doctor's office. My doctor is a mercenary who suspects me of abuse but will never tell the authorities because of the loss to his business. And my car has had enough.

Binary problems are much easier to deal with. If it works, great. If it doesn't work, get it fixed. But my car refuses to start or fail to start consistently. Sometimes it will start. Sometimes the engine temperature will quiver when I insert the key into the ignition and then go dead as I turn the key.

In these instances, if jiggling the car wheel, jimmying the key, and opening and closing the door repeatedly had no effect, my decision whether to fix the car would be simple. But they work. Sometimes. Just enough that if you created a matrix that combined the frequency of car starts times one's income level, a cascade of Yes and No's would surround a small island of where I am at: "Just one more time."

Take this morning. Car started fine. Drove to Falls Church. Reentered car. Ignition wouldn't start. This was after a string of successful starts, leading me to believe that the problem, through the magic of ignoring it, had fixed itself.

Now, I know almost nothing about cars. But I know a lot about 8-bit Nintendo games. So I did what any good Nintendo player would do: I lifted the car hood and blew on the battery.

And it worked. The car started. Long live Zelda! "Doo doo, dee doo dee dee doo…"

The next two trips, I had to get a jump start. I blew corroded battery acid from the connectors until my spit sizzled on the engine. My child, nay, my baby, which I promise promise promise to take better care of if it gets healthy again, sits in front of my couch, doors unlocked, keys on the front seat, video camera on. I am wishing that a car thief will come by and I can take first prize in America's Funniest Home Videos. "Now the thief is trying to blow on the battery! [audience laughs] Uh-oh. Here comes the cops. [sfx: slide whistle]"

I think the problem is that the one of the connectors is bent and not connecting with the battery. It resists my attempts to bend it back, and my sisters aren't around to hold it to the battery while I turn on the car. So, unless someone tries to stop me, I'm going to do something that is either ingenious or incredibly stupid: shove tin foil in the gap between the connector and the batter.

Again, I know nothing about cars. If putting tin foil near a battery is the safety equivalent as having a lighter fluid fight with your friends at a barbecue, now would be an excellent time to tell me.