We had a dead car sitting in the driveway for over a week. Initial hunches pointed to the battery. Called my father for some advice, as I do in these situations.
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Having replaced a battery before, I took it upon myself to go ahead and get under the hood (bonnet) and do the same with this car. One little thing though, the whole “might explode in your face” and battery acid thing always gets me a little on edge. So, I don the very silly and thick fireplace gloves and take to loosening the cables on the battery terminals.
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That’s when I hear something. I ignored it the first time since the neighbours were having some massive tear-up of their back garden and had some guys working there with loud machinery for a couple weeks now. And I hear it again. The very distinct but also seriously unintelligible Ayrshire accent. (I can understand Glaswegian in a heartbeat; Ayrshire truly baffles me.) It was one of the workers from next door asking me — or at least that’s what I assumed — if my car wouldn’t start. I guess I had the look of helpless woman about me with my overly large leather gloves on to keep any potential battery acid from eating through my skin.
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Next thing I know, in the blink of an eye, he and his workmate have jumped our car and topped up the battery with water — all in his bare hands. After this sincerely noble gesture, and returning with a new battery, he even put the new battery in the car and offered to take our old one to the recycling centre. We had a nice conversation about how crap French cars are and various other things in which I had to have the poor guy repeat himself numerous times. I need an Ayrshire translation guide.
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I’m pretty positive, if this was anywhere down say, near where MotH is from (Bucks), I’d have changed that battery all on my own. I’ve always maintained the further north you go, the nicer folks are — like the US in reverse. Of course, with some anomalies here and there.
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Anyhow. What decade is this again? The 1950’s? Sadly, I couldn’t even offer beer as repayment as he didn’t drink, so made a pot of joe instead. Now, I’m not usually the ungrateful and/or raging feminist type but I was slightly disappointed at not having done the battery swap myself. Ah well. At least my nails were saved. Every once in a blue moon, my usually waivering faith in humanity is ever-so-slightly reaffirmed.
