The Beast

Many a time I've ranted here about my van, the beast.

Well here's another one.

This morning, as I was all set to leave for work, the beast would not start, again. The engine wouldn't even turn over.

So I called AAA and they came out to give the beast a jump start. The guy looked at my battery and said that it is almost permanently dead because he could see rot near the posts. He also said that if I ever get into my car and smell something like rotten eggs then that is the sign that the battery is ready to explode and obviously shouldn't even attempt to start the beast. He warned me that when the battery explodes it fries the vehicle's computer which costs a small fortune to replace. Of course he recommended that I buy a new battery.

Well I am going to do that - but not for the beast. You see, in New Hampshire, vehicles are registered and inspected based on the birth month of the owner. So with my birth month being June, my beast has only four days of life left, counting today.

Why?

Well for one, the beast would not pass the rather thorough state inspection because it needs new brakes, probably a few tires and has a wicked leak somewhere in the (already replaced once) transmission. All of which are not worth fixing because the beast is 11 years old and has 142+K miles on it.

The upside is that my parents have a car that they will let me borrow until I can arrange to buy something else, which I am working on. Sometime this week I'll get the car from them and register and inspect it using the plates I already have.

The AAA guy told me to leave the car running for 20-25 minutes to let the battery charge up a bit before I drive it. And I think that time is up.

So...

Hi-ho, hi-ho, it's off to work I go.