Abandoned
Yesterday morning my car almost didn't want to start. It did that chug-ughing and then belt-whining thing that cars do when they have been sitting overnight in the -30°F temperatures without the block heater being plugged in. And then this morning it started and died twice from the cold. We had ruled out the extension cord and the outlet, so I called the shop to make sure they could get it in this morning.
A coworker's son was supposed to follow me to the shop and give me a ride home, but he ended up following a different little silver car to the shop on the other side of town and giving that woman a ride to her home. Who this woman was, we will never know, but I'm sure she was glad for the ride.
But after a half hour of waiting and asking Clay, the guy behind the counter, why no one was at their desks at 8:45am, I decided that I would either need to walk or call my husband.
The shop isn't that far from my office. I've walked the distance many times, and often willingly: it's a short trip through downtown (as much of a downtown as Alaska can have, anyway). And I would have walked this morning had I remembered to bring my hat.
I'm not too fond of frostbitten ears.
Were anyone considering it, let me just be the first to say that waking to a frozen car and then being abandoned at the mechanic's shop is not a great way to start the morning.
2006
4 Love Notes
That woman was probably as confused as she was grateful. That's so funny!
I pointed my son to the Alaska weather forecast yesterday when he was complaining it was only 50 degrees here. He asked a question I wasn't able to answer:
Do they make the cars they sell in Alaska differently since the temperatures are so extreme?
Good question. No, the cars are not made differently. But we do have engine block (or head bolt) heaters, oil pan heaters, and battery blankets. These all attach to a cord that sticks out the front of the car and the car gets plugged in to keep the fluids and battery warm. A car should be plugged in when it's colder than 20°F (that's above zero) to help with exhaust polution.
A lot of people also get autostarts installed in their car. It's a remote car starter that hangs on your keychain, and some of the more expensive ones will automatically start the car for a short length of time when the engine gets to a certain temperature: say, 10 minutes at -20°F.
But speaking of weather forecasts, I wonder why my weather doodad hasn't been showing lately when I can access the XML file just fine.
Seems to be just my Firefox installation at work.
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