Totally Awkward Tuesday: Jumper Cable Drama

It's Tuesday again, folks! Time for another installment of Tova's Totally Awkward Tuesdays!

I have been traveling all week so I'm going to re-tell one of my favorite stories ever, which I told about a year ago on this blog.

One summer my friend Amanda's car battery died just a few blocks away from where I worked. Hugely pregnant, she stopped into my office and asked if I knew of any guy in the office who could give her car a jump. I was in one of those proud "We don't need a man!" modes, so I said I could help her. I pulled my car up to hers and we opened the hoods. We hooked the jumper cables up to my battery just fine but her battery was so old it was corroded and we couldn't tell which was side was positive and which was negative. So what did we do? We guessed.

Never guess.

We hooked it up and a little spark flew up, followed by a tiny sizzle of smoke. Amanda was like, "Ummmm.... Christine?" I said, running to my car, "It's fine.... Just get in your car and I'll hit the gas!"

Never listen to me.

Before we knew it there was smoke EVERYWHERE. We ran out of our cars and the plastic was literally melting off the jumper cables... including the handles (so we couldn't unhook them from the batteries)! In a panic I started running around the neighborhood knocking on doors and screaming for help. Amanda totally kept her cool (that is SO Amanda... and SO not me!). Finally the smoke died down once we turned our cars off, and we were able to pry the cables off the batteries with some old rags once they cooled down. We then realized the cables had actually burned into the side of my car (that was fun to explain when I traded it in for a new one a few years later)!

*sigh* OK, fine, I'll admit it.... We needed a man.

Happy Tuesday!