On Sick Kids and a Dead Battery

This has been a trying few weeks for me.  First of all, Goober, my 1 year old has been really sick.  He had a 104 degree fever for 5 days straight and it was terrifying.  All I could do was think about T as a 1 year-old in the hospital with seizures from a fever like that.  Every time Goober twitched in his sleep, I was sure it was going to turn into a convulsion.  I did not leave his side until the fever finally broke.  Thankfully, he came through unscathed, except for all the crying and sweating and chills and misery a fever brings.

Then there was the freak snowstorm.  My house didn't have damage or lose power, but my mom's house, which is right down the street, was hit pretty bad.  There were huge branches and tree limbs down all over her street, and a power line came down between her house and the neighbor's.  They still haven't fixed all the power outages or taken care of all the huge downed trees blocking some streets.

The night before Halloween, T got sick.  I thought he had food poisoning, because his dad wasn't feeling well either, and they shared a sandwich.  I was wrong.  We managed to go trick-or-treating for an hour before things got worse.  Princess was sick.  Then Goober was sick again, with another fever and whatever stomach virus everyone else had.  Now the kids are all okay, but the MIL is really sick and the boyfriend is still a little under the weather.

Then, on Friday, when I tried to take T to school for the first time since Tuesday (my mom drove him the other days because I was taking care of the rest of my sick family), my car was dead.  My dad has been telling me since last winter that I need to get a new car battery because I've been driving for 7 years with the same one.  I didn't listen, and he was right (he usually is). 

So I called my mom to come pick T up to take him to school again.  I went with her and we stopped on the way back to get a new battery.  I figured the boyfriend could change it for me, even though he still wasn't 100%. 

I didn't know that a Hyundai battery is notoriously difficult to change.  You have to unscrew half the damn bolts under the hood to get the battery loose.  And then there is another bolt by the bottom of the battery that locks is down.  It took over an hour to get most of the bolts loosened.

Then we stripped the socket wrench trying to open the battery lock (and by we, I mean me-he couldn't turn it because of corrosion so I tried and stripped it).  I walked to my mom's house to get my dad's socket wrenches, but he took them with him on his golf outing (I don't know what he could possibly need a socket wrench for while golfing).

So I borrowed my mom's car to go in search of a new one, although the boyfriend found a ratchet and only needed an extension bar.  The first store I went to was a bust.  I asked someone to help me because I wasn't seeing what I needed, and the store associate told me he would be right with me.  I waited, and waited, and waited.  Until about 4 store associates were chatting it up with each other, not helping anyone.  I left, extremely irritated.

Next I went to the automotive part of said store.  They couldn't help me because I bought my battery somewhere else but they would help if I brought my car for them to change it.  Yeah, my car is sitting in my driveway with a bunch of crap under the hood taken apart.  Unless they could teleport it, the car wasn't leaving my driveway until it was running again. And I share my driveway with a landscaping company the landlord owns, so it's always a hectic place.

Then I went to AutoZone.  It was like walking into heaven.  I was helped immediately, and when the lady didn't know much about tools, she got someone else to help me who did.  So Fernando, thank you for making it easy for me.  You found my extender bar, and when I needed a longer one, found that and an adapter so it would work.  Yes, I needed to buy a new ratchet in the process, but it was so worth it.

I am seriously buying everything car related from Auto Zone from now on.  Once I got home, the new battery was in the car and it was running in 15 minutes.  After we spent hours trying to get the old one out.  So now I'm happy.  But the boyfriend is exhausted since he wasn't feeling well to start off with.