Got Home A Bit Late

I work nights. And that means the vehicle gets to sit out in the cold at the coldest of times. There are times I take a break not so much that I need it, but getting the engine hot is a Good Idea. The night of 2020 January 5-6 was such a night. I drove home, a less than direct way, and backed into the garage[1] to aid in heat conservation. I had my break and drove back, taking an even less direct route to get things hopefully good and hot and throw what additional charge on the battery could be had.

Another fellow had his vehicle idling for a while a couple times during the night. And one fellow did not… and worse, “chose” this cold night (-11 F a few hours after sunrise) to accidentally leave the headlights on. He arrives at least an hour after I do, so I didn’t notice – and, apparently, neither did anyone else. So his battery was truly flat in the morning.

It’s a curious thing that as I recall “driving junk” that I’m the one with jumper cables, toolkit, etc. Even though my vehicle is now a “luxury” car, I still have a fair bit of kit. Thus I wound up giving this fellow a jump. But since his battery was not merely low-temperature weak but fully run down, it took a fair time to get a good charge up. And the not running at all overnight made starting difficult besides. But eventually his engine turned over and fired and kept on firing. But, as we found after disconnecting the cables, something seemed to be if not smoking, sort of steaming from… somewhere. Where? No idea. Might even have been the battery – which in his vehicle (Dodge Stratus) is rather hidden so there are lugs for jumping. While things looked alright, I lent him my recently purchased fire extinguisher just in case. Hopefully he has no need of it and I’ll get it back unused. But if he does need it, at least he’ll have it.

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[1] I back in as $HOUSEMATE also backs in. It’s easier to see things as I exit the garage going forward. $HOUSEMATE, I suspect, picked up the habit when driving as EMT/Paramedic: GO! is not the time to have to fiddle about with reversing. Parking long before or long after can take time without consequence.