Mr. Goodwrench

I am a man who always came ready with a joke, but when my car wouldn’t start yesterday morning, my sunny outlook on life turned overcast.

I went for a breakfast with a friend that morning and was about to leave when I noticed something amiss - my car made almost no sound when I turned the ignition – and apparently so did my heart. It stopped cold. I was already late for an urgent appointment and this absolutely would necessitate a double prescription for antidepressant.

Truthfully, I don’t remember all the banality that followed after that. All I knew was, I felt numb and disassociated. Just like when I kicked the headmaster’s son on the head in the playground as a boy, I understood only that something awful had just blindsided me.

I am no Chairman of Battery Council International or something, but I was pretty sure my car battery went dead.

Now, the thing about changing the battery isn’t as simply as plugging the car overnight to your bedroom wall. It is much more complicated than that. First you’d need a new battery, and then of course you’d need a person who knows how to change them. And rest assured that “person” wouldn’t be me.

I know I shouldn’t be so worried about killing myself when changing the car batteries on my own. But what worried me the most was to maim myself. So I rather leave that to the professionals. Honestly I can’t really see myself donning a pair of work gloves and splash-proof polycarbonates goggles to protect my manicured hands and eyes from battery acid and sparks. (Heck, I’ve never ever even been to an auto-parts store before, oh wait, except to buy vacuum bags for my vacuum cleaner)

Anyway, lucky for me, the car workshop wasn’t really that far from the place of event, so I walked a mile to the workshop, practically screaming for help.

In less than an hour or so my car was all done and ready to go, but not before I heard this wise-cracking, philosophical observation from the mechanic.

"Assuming the car is your body, the battery is like the heart. Eventhough in bodily sex-appeal rating it scores into the bottom half of the list - just inching ahead of the nose hair - it’s keeping everything together. Without it, the “body” won’t be able to function"

A very wise man, indeed, but don’t I know that already?