Oh Camry, My Camry...The Amusement Never Ends

As promised, here is another story about the gloriousness of my 1995 Toyota Camry.

Last winter I came out to the car after a looong day of first graders to discover that the unthinkable had occurred...My poor Camry's battery had once again died. I don't recall exactly what the cause of death was this time though the battery generally dies for one of two reasons.

1. I have left the lights on. This is not because I am a ditz! When I first got the old gal in 2002, her lights would turn off automatically when the driver's door was opened. This ability has left in her old age but the habit has not left me causing quite a few dead batteries.
2. She allows the very life to be sucked out of her by a cell phone charger that somehow does not get unplugged before the car is exited. I have no idea how someone forgets to do this but it happens kind of a lot. And sometimes in conjunction with the #1 reason the battery dies.

That said, I had never been alone with a dead car battery. No dad/husband/boyfriend/anyone who remotely knew what they were doing. So, what was I to do? I went back inside to find my co-teacher Lori to see if she knew what to do.

Her very enthusiastic response was, "Lauren's car battery dies all the time!! She has a jumper box!! Her dad gave it to her for Christmas!! Let's get her!!"

We raced up to the Kindergarten hall. Raced is probably a bit of a stretch. Keep in mind I was 7-8 months pregnant and Lori (hence-forth Miss Licter, because this story will be way better if you imagine it as it truly was...teachers without a clue) was already running late for a physical therapy appointment for her ankle. Sauntered is probably a better term.

When we finally meandered up to Lauren's room (hence-forth Miss Marino) she was super-excited to get to use her jumper box thing for the first time. We followed the directions kind of but the jumper box did not work. Probably because we only kind of followed the directions. Hmm...time to do the dreaded deed...Call Dad.

He asked me the following questions:

1. Is there a man around?
A: Unfortunately, the only man who works here has gone home.

2. A janitor or custodian?
A: The last thing you want is to owe Miss Ruthie a favor. That woman is CRAZY. If you owed her/were the last one at your desk, all of a sudden the entire staff would begin receiving emails from you in the following format:

A message from Ruthie:

GET YOUR KIDS TO STACK THEIR CHAIRS OR I AM GOING TO QUIT VACUUMING.

RUTHIE.

Thanks,
Beth Leeth

So obviously, that was not an option

3. A farmer's daughter?
A: No.

4. A military wife?
A: No

5. So it's just two first grade teachers and a kindergarten teacher?
A: Yes.

6. Ok, hook the black to the red...blah, blah...obviously I wasn't a good student.

And that was that. We would have to figure it out ourselves because I couldn't remember to turn my headlights off, much less the directions to jumpstart a car!

I will now describe what happened as though it was witnessed by one of my students.

Mrs. Leeth was trying to get her hood to stay open and Miss Licter was yelling at her to get away because she didn't want Peanut to get exploded. And Miss Marino was running between some cars. And Miss Licter was talking on her cell phone and the she was holding Mrs. Leeth's hood open and then the car started.

Doesn't the first grade version of things leave a lot to be desired?

Mrs. Leeth was trying to get her hood to stay open and Miss Licter was yelling at her to get away because she doesn't want Peanut to get exploded.
At one point in time the Camry had some kind of hydraulics or something that kept the hood open without one of those metal sticks like most cars have. Yeah, well it didn't work anymore. Miss Licter was very concerned that we didn't know what we were doing and that if I was holding onto the hood I might blow myself up. She took this dangerous responsibility upon herself. Peanut is what my class called Wyatt before he was born.

And Miss Marino was running between some cars.
She was kind of the only one who knew what she was doing. She was hooking up all the cables and telling us what to do. Thanks Miss Marino!

And Miss Licter was talking on her cell phone and the she was holding Mrs. Leeth's hood open and then the car started.
Miss Licter's end of telling the doctor's office she would be late for her PT appointment: "My pregnant co-worker's battery is dead so I am going to be late." What kind of a laugh do you think the receptionist got at my expense? Probably a pretty good one.

That Camry.