Electricity, you bitch.

I recently came into possession of a white, 1996 Chrysler Town & Country minivan.

This may seem a small achievement, nay, a laughable one, for what 23 year old bachelor would want a white soccer mom-mobile? 

In this particular instance, I did. I have never before  had the joy of car ownership, nor the stress or emotional turmoil of car troubles. I DO have intimate knowledge of the joys (or lack thereof) of public transportation, and waiting for hours in the cold and the rain for lazy bus drivers to finally get to the damn stop. So suffice it to say I was pretty excited for this slightly busted, slightly rusted, and rather ugly minivan.  

Now, this car was a gift, kind of in the same way a particularly large fruit cake is a gift; free, technically useful, but really you're doing the giver a favor by accepting the damned thing. Similarly, this car was free; technically it still ran, but I was doing the giver a solid by taking it off her hands.

When I first opened the door to the car I was met by an odor of decaying wood and what I thought, perhaps, was bug spray. 

I was correct on both counts. The car was actually completely and utterly full of pallets, loose wood, and other yard detritus. In the passengers seat sat uprooted onions, still rooting, as well as a few loose potatoes. In the drivers seat, more root vegetables, and a small helping of dirt. (Note to potential home gardeners; minivans do not a good agricultural vehicle make)

I cleared the seat, and squeezed my large frame into the vehicle. It was kind of reminiscent of crawling into a composter. I brushed the skittles and other loose things off the dash, inserted the screwdriver-key into the ignition, and gave it a turn.

It took three tries to get the car started up, as it had been sitting in the driveway for about 6 months. Eventually it revved to life, or perhaps coughed would be a more accurate descriptor. In any case, it ran, and a casual system check gave it the all clear. All the lights flickered in time with what I assumed was the alternator, but other than that we figured it was safe to drive. How comically wrong we were. Me with my driving permit, my buddy in the passenger seat, we took to the streets and attempted the 5 mile journey to my apartment complex.  My first hint that we might have bitten off more than we could chew was at a stop light, where for no apparent reason the car simply stalled out and of course refused to even turn over. One quick foot-powered turn through rush hour traffic, and one battery jump later from a kind gas station attendant, and once again we were on our way. 

Not five minutes later, and the White Menace stalled again in the middle of an intersection, once again not even giving us the courtesy of trying to turn over. This time, there was no kind station attendant, nor any kind motorists. Fortunately a second friend was following us in his vehicle, and we attempted to jump the van with his beefy BMW coupe battery. No dice. This time, the lights were on, but no one was home. The bloody thing was only making a pitiful clicking noise

(My battery giving us the finger)

Out of sheer desperation, we physically removed the battery from my friend's car, unhooked the terminals from mine, and tried to start from that battery. LO and behold, we started without a hitch.  Never have I heard of a battery being so dead it was actually causing an impedance in the electrical system, but there it was!

Perhaps only by force of will, I managed to get the car home and parked legally, and thus ended the first day of my new car saga, and began my first night of automobile- inspired binge drinking.