Karma's a Bitch, and God's an Asshole

"BWA HA HA!! What else can we do to JP? Let's blow up his tires!!"

Before I left Morgantown about two weeks ago, my car's battery died. It's like the electrical system farted and hiccuped at the same time, couldn't handle it, and gave up. Not eager to electrocute myself or blow up my car, I called AAA to handle the problem. A tow truck arrived that night with a man and his wife (I assume) inside. The man told me, "Yep, your battery's shot," and then informed me that their battery truck would arrive the next morning. Several beers, a night's sleep, and a hangover later, the battery truck guy runs some tests and surmises that "yep, it's your battery." More importantly, the man says that my alternator and starter are fine.

See my post from two months ago to learn more about how much I know about cars.

About a week later, my car's battery light turns on. I bring this to the attention of my dad, but a few days later the light turns on again, so I dismiss the problem.

Last night I was on my way to Pittsburgh for a night of drunken revelry when I saw that the light had come on again. At about this time I tell my friend that I'm convinced that there must be something wrong with the light. "After all," I crowed, pleased with myself that I remembered a few car terms, "the AAA guy said that my alternator and starter were fine!"

Karma has big ears and a helluva sense of humor.

After watching the Patriots game, the Pens game, the Penn State game, and the Pitt basketball game all at the same time and then spending about an hour trying to figure out why my friend's new HDTV wouldn't show anything in HD, we headed out to the bar. I was, by default as the only sober one, the DD.

My car made the trip to the bar just fine. But then after picking up my friend's girlfriend, my car started acting funny. Then "acting funny" became "a slow descent towards mechanical failure." First the headlights dimmed. Then my CD player lost power. Then the windshield wipers slowed to a crawl. My speedometer suddenly dropped to zero even as we traveled back to my friend's place.

It was actually kind of exciting. We were playing Beat the Clock with my car's battery. Every minute or two, some feature of my car would lose power. I was getting an object lesson in exactly what a car's battery controls. At one point, my friend Joe was getting excited and yelled out, "ONLY ONE MORE TURN ON YOUR LEFT!! PUT ON YOUR TURN SIGNAL DAMMIT!!" And I yelled back, "THERE IS NO TURN SIGNAL!!"

The car finally gave out about 30 yards from my friend's house. We were all disappointed, but we pushed the thing the rest of the way. My friends and family all agree that the problem is definitely my alternator... you know, that device that Slappy from AAA told me was working just fine. Maybe the guy was actually looking for AA and stumbled into the wrong job.

So my car still sits in front of Joe's house awaiting a new alternator. There was maybe three hours between the time I praised my sturdy alternator on my way there and when my car died.

I swear, I only believe in God when I think he's mocking me.

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JP's Car: Serving as a subject for countless blog posts since 2006.