Might be Hard to Explain: Part 2

Because there's always a Part 2. At least when I'm involved. Or horses. Considering it's me AND horses, I expect a Part 3 to most stories. Luckily, not this one. I think this is just a two part-er.

So I left Truby turned out. She seemed fine. I had things to do. I'd check on her later. We headed over to the ranch after dinner. I hadn't brought my purse or my phone, because why bother? We drove over in the husband's car. Which meant I also didn't have a flashlight, and Tucson is dark at night.

The ranch driveway forms a big U that goes behind the house, and curves around by the gates. The short end of the U points at the gate to the ring/Truby's nighttime pen. Husband stopped pointed at the gate, but basically in the middle of the drive. I asked him if he was going to pull over or just block the driveway. He said he was going to stay in the car, so blocking the drive won't be an issue. Fair enough.

A Truby in the Tucson desert darkness

I grabbed his phone for the flashlight, and gingerly made my way to the feed room to get some Bute made up. I survived the trip (Arizona is full of things that want to kill you, walking around in the dark in sandals is not good times, at least for me!) and gave Truby her Bute mush. It was nice to be out though. The moon shone, the sleepy horse snorts, a soft fuzzy Truby to pet.

After she was done, I locked up, got in the car, and...nothing. Car wouldn't start. Did all the sad, desperate things you try and do when your car won't start. Nothing.

Now, we've lived in Tucson for almost a year, but haven't really made any friends. Met some nice people, yes. But definitely no one you'd call when you need a ride home or a jump start. I'd actually been joking about this with one of my co-workers, and she told me if I ever needed it, I could call her. But...my phone was at home. I had no idea of her number, because who memorizes phone numbers anymore? We just tap them into our phones and forget it.

So we walked next door to where the ranch owners live, and knocked on the door. Luckily we could owner G right before he headed off to catch a movie (Kidnapped, he doesn't recommend it) and he let us borrow one of those solo jumper things.

Nothing.

It was a nice, cool night, and we lived nearby. So we decided just to walk home. We returned the jumper, rolled the car as close to the gate/out of the way as possible and headed home. We did peer hopefully at the vet's parking lot, perhaps if there was an emergency...but no. Everyone was home and healthy and happy. Anyway, we're only about a mile and a half, and we've been walking 1.5-2.25 miles almost daily. No sweat. We got home and decided to deal with it in the morning.

We started off by buying our own auto jumper. I've owned one before, and it's AMAZING. Especially for someone that has a tendency to leave their headlights on. Oops. I got two jumps out of mine before it stopped holding a charge, but it was totally worth the $40 I paid for it. So we bought one, charged it up, and headed over to the ranch. Truby got some more Bute and snuggles, and we tried jumping the car.

Nothing.

We went BACK home and decided to call a tow truck. G just happened to call before we did, and he told us he wanted to try jumping it off his truck. It might work since it had way more juice than the solo jumpers. No problem, never hurts to try.

how I spent my day off

I'm sure you know where this is going. Nowhere. We tried it all and husband's car is just dead. We called our insurance, and the sent a tow truck over. He got there in about an hour, and my husband worked on some schoolwork, and I wandered around petting ponies and talking to my dad back home in Maryland. It also gave us a chance to review the damage from Truby's "You won't like me when I'm scared" Incredible Pony Hulk experience. Luckily G had the same reaction I did, just laughed it off. No big deal, no one hurt, an easy repair, man aren't horses something?

She's definitely something!

watching the tow truck pull up

Already bored with watching the tow

To continue our All's Well That Ends Well theme, the tow was covered 100% by our insurance, and we were even able to pick up the car the same day. The battery was dead. 3 volts left and they said nothing was gonna bring that back to life. They checked out everything else, and it was fine, literally just the battery. 

So there you go. A wild "weekend" for us. Everything worked out in the end, and everyone, including the car is just fine today! Let's see how long this lasts...

Planning shenanigans. I know it!