Jump Start

Some of my siblings (David, Patrick, and Josie, to be specific) flew up to Calgary to visit my sister Abra. Grant got buddy passes for them so it was quite economical, however confusing it was.

Down here in Utah, we thought their flight was at noon, landing them in Calgary around 3 pm. My sister checked the flights though and there were no flights landing at noon. She called my family shortly after 8 in the morning and told them that their plane was supposed to leave at 9:40, not noon. I imagine it was quite the morning rush at my parents' house yesterday, but they made it to the airport on time and caught their flight.

They landed in Calgary--but their luggage did not. It somehow got left behind in Utah. They went to the luggage claim office to see if they could have their luggage delivered but because they flew with buddy passes, that option was not available. They decided to wait in the city until the next plane came in at 5:00 with their luggage.

Abra had her kids with her so instead of bumming around at the airport, they all headed to the mall, had lunch, and walked around. When they got back to the airport around 5, however, they found that the plane had been delayed. So they waited, and waited, and waited. The grown-ups tempers, I'm sure, were wearing thin and the children were probably getting pretty restless.

The plane finally landed around 7 pm. They got their luggage and headed to the van, well-ready to have their long wait over with.

Unfortunately, one of the doors wasn't quite closed so the interior lights stayed on the whole time they were in the airport...the battery was dead. Before they could make the drive to High River, they had to find someone to jump start their car for them. What a perfect way to end a frustrating day.

Oddly enough, I haven't seen or heard of anyone jump starting a car in quite a long time. We're two for two now though because Andrew had to go jump start his dad's car this morning.

I went to Super Saturday this morning so Andrew was taking the opportunity to sleep in without being nagged at or having the baby scream. Apparently his attempt was futile because the phone kept ringing. One of those rings was his dad.

His dad drove to the theater to do a class project this morning and neglected to turn off his headlights when he got out. When he came back to his car his battery was completely dead.

Andrew arrived on the scene and he and Reid proceeded to attempt to revive on the car. They popped both the hoods and looked at the batteries. Apparently our battery doesn't have the positive and negative charges marked, so they just guessed. They hooked up the first clamps without any problem. The second they put the second clamp on, however, things started sparking at Reid's end and smoking on our end. Reid jumped away from the clamps and Andrew unclamped our battery--they then reversed how they were doing things.

It's a good thing I was reviewing CPR at Super Saturday; I might actually have needed to use it, and I even had an AED handy at the time. Maybe we should start a community program to certify people on jumper cable and AED usage in one session.

Repeat after me: I'm clear, you're clear, we're all clear.