That's MS. MacGyver To You, Buddy

Yesterday was all about the animals. Today, we're back to our regularly scheduled programming. Which means, it's all about ME.

My car is a 1997 Nissan Altima. I've been driving it for almost ten years now, and it's starting to fall apart a little. In the last five years, I've had a lot of trouble with the battery connections. I don't know why, but they keep getting loose. This leaves me sitting in a parking lot somewhere, futilely turning the key over and over, hearing nothing but a very unhappy silence. Broken only by my cussing.

The first time I had this problem, my dad was with me. He figured out what was wrong, jammed a little nail in the loose connection to complete the circuit, and we were on our merry way. And of course, I drove around with that nail for weeks, because what's to fix? The nail works! What more do I need? Perhaps something that wouldn't fall out. Like the nail did. Leaving me sitting in the parking lot at the dentist's office, cussing.

Luckily, we only had one car at the time and a very small apartment, so my trunk was the storage space for all of A.'s fishing crap. This usually ticked me off, especially when I was trying to load groceries in the trunk and had to wedge them in next to the stinky waders and tackle boxes. But those tackle boxes came in handy when I began the search for a small metal item that could be jammed in the battery. I used a fish hook.

TOLD you I'm Ms. MacGyver.

Then yesterday, I came out of the Salvation Army (yup, I shop at thrift stores--wanna make somethin' of it?), turned the key, and was greeted by that ominous silence. I knew what had happened, and sure enough, when I popped the hood, the battery connection was loose. There was a guy in a pick-up truck next to me who watched me pop the hood and asked if I needed any help. I told him all I needed was a paper clip. He smiled at me with a condescending, pitying smile, and laughed. Then he watched me go back into the store to get my paper clip, jam the paper clip into the connector, snip off the top of the paper clip with the wire cutters I had fortuitously just purchased at the farm store, start my car, and zoom away. HA HA HA. Take that, you condescending MAN, you.

GIRLS RULE.