Tahoe?? Tah-NO!

Recently in an attempt to rescue my wife from a life of being a "mini-van mom" we traded in the old Honda Odessy and purchased an almost new red Chevy Tahoe. It's beautiful. 5,200 lbs of American metal and miles and miles of wires. From the DVD player (AKA child silencer) to the seat heaters (bun toasters) we never could have imagined having a car this nice. Power trunk, automatic folding seats, wireless headphones... I can even hear the little computer inside it booting up whenever the door is opened. In all honesty I am sometimes a little bit disappointed when the car doesn't talk back to me like on Knight Rider. I never thought that we would own a vehicle where we would have to coax the girls to get out after a ride with candy and college funds.

The other day we had quite a bit of running around to do. While Mandy and the girls sat in the car and watched a movie I would run into this place for 5 minutes and that place for 2 minutes. We had to make a 20 minute stop at the home of a woman who is making some illustrations for my clinic. Afterward I jumped into the driver's seat, pushed the button to automatically adjust the seat to my comfort, and that's about where the nightmare began. I turned my key in the ignition and all of the sudden it's "rrrrrr.....rrrrr....click click click....". It was the sound of my heart dying. MY CAR! MY BEAUTIFUL CAR! All the lights went dim. The DVD player ground to a halt, the satellite radio cut off, systems errors started to flash on the dash: "Stabilitrack Disabled," "Park Assist Disabled," "Check Battery, "HELP ME JASON I'M DYING!"

The whole family was dumb founded. "I think our battery is dead," I said. This was met with cries of disbelief, sorrow, and incredulity. "No seriously, I think that we have run down the battery." Mandy asked how that was possible. Granted, there are about a million and three electrical devices in the car and we use just about all of them. I guess it would have been more reasonable to ask how it hadn't happened sooner but given all of the other bells and whistles we thought that instead of a standard car battery that there would be a miniature nuclear reactor or something like that under the hood to meet the energy needs.

I told the family not to panic, I would go back to the house and ask if they could give us a jump start. I tried to open my door: nothing. Oh NO! The power locks were broken! WE'RE TRAPPED! I started to hyperventilate. I couldn't even roll down the power windows or open the power sunroof to crawl out. How much oxygen was in this thing and how long would it take us to run out? "EVERYBODY BREATHE SLOWLY. TRY TO CONSERVE THE AIR." Mandy, who was obviously consuming plenty of oxygen was quick to point out that the manual locks still worked. After escaping from the disabled vehicle Mandy and the girls went into the house to visit while the man of the house and I embarked on the simple task of jumping the Tahoe.

My jumper cables were in the trunk. Without thinking I hit the button on my key ring that would typically cause it to open slowly using an automated system. But of course I forgot that there was no power so that didn't work. I tried the handle but instead of a latch there is just a button that you push to activate the automatic door. Useless. Now I felt just as locked out as I had felt locked in a moment earlier. Obvious answers weren't coming to me quickly in this paniced state. It took a full 3 or 4 minutes before I realized that I could just crawl into the back of the SUV from the inside and get the jumper cables (operating completely by feel since the lights back there no longer worked).

Fortunately the manufacturers had the foresight to make the hood mechanism completely manual otherwise it would have warranted its own paragraph. Once we got under the hood the sight was amazing. Everything under the hook was emaculate, organized, and impressive. It was what you might expect to see when you pop the hood on the starship Enterprise (that's Star Trek for you non-nerds out there). We quickly found what we assumed was the battery. It was a box about the size of a battery and there were thick electrical cables coming out of it. We opened the cover on the box only to find a bunch of labeled fuses: Lights, Stereo, Mirrors, Wash/Dryer, DVD Player, Rotissere Grill, Windshiled Wipers, Time Travel, Etc. After spending 15 minutes trying to figure out how in the world to replace the cover on the "fake" battery we searched the other side of the car for the real one. When we found it I was pleased to see that it was set up special for jumping. (Apparently other people have had this problem before). There was a bright red box that when opened had a perfect spot for hooking up the positive lead of the jumper cable. This was too easy! There had to be, and there was, a catch. If you know anything about electricity you know that you need to have a positive and a negative to complete the circuit. In this case and metal part of the car would have done. Our problem? To keep the engine area so emaculate and clean just about every piece of metal in there have been coated with this plastic like substance, completely insulating it. It only took about 20 minutes in the dark to find a piece of metal that would get the job done.

The whole experience made me grateful for simple things in our lives like butter churns and manual washing machines. Now I see the wisdom of the manual can opener, potato powered shortwave radios and checkers rather than the Xbox 360. Technology has made me soft and a little bit stupid. I'm going to start doing things a little more old fashioned from now on (I vow on my electronic journal via the information super highway). Tomorrow morning, I'm not even going to press that button on my power toothbrush, I'm going to do it like the Amish instead.