I’m sitting in the dealership, having brought my car in for their “Fall Service Special.” They opened at seven this morning, and I felt very virtuous about getting my car serviced in advance of the winter season. When the service person summoned me, I assumed it was for what my husband terms the “visiting the patient;” that part of the oil change where I am made to examine my dirty air filter and- if I care about my car and have any human decency- agree to pay for a new one.
“Your battery is dead,” the service guy informed me in low tones. I looked at him blankly. “When we tried to take it back to the service area, we had to jump it to get it back there, and now it tests at 0%.” Huh? “Are you sure you’re talking about my car? I haven’t had any battery problems.” I ended up going out to the service area and trying to start my car, simply to see for myself that it really was dead. To be fair, the battery is over 4 years old, and it had taken a little longer to crank a couple of times. I had never, though, wondered if it was going to get going. Now it is dead in the dealership, beyond any hope of life support. Or so they tell me.
As I sit here while my new battery is installed, I have a couple of choices. It could be that I have just had the wool pulled over my eyes, something I fear in general when getting my car serviced. (“You say that my floozefluffer is misaligned . . .uhhh, sure, better repair it, whatever the cost . . .”) If that is the situation, I could snarl out of here angry about the %^&* crooks at this dealership, which I would start naming all over cyberspace.
Or I could tell myself, “Wow. There are so many awful times and places to be stuck with a dead battery. How wonderful it is that it was actually sitting in the shop when it died.” That mindset transforms me from someone who was ripped off into someone who was blessed. I think I prefer to start my week off blessed.
So, today I am blessed. If my floozlefluffer goes out anytime soon, though, I may have to rethink this position . . . Nah, even then, I’ll still be blessed. It turns out that blessing- the real kind- has absolutely nothing to do with circumstance and everything to do with God. I am blessed.
