I Heart Autozone
I did my client workshop Tuesday evening. Those things really stress me and I need downtime afterward so I was looking forward to a relaxing Wednesday night of mind numbing television when The Divine Mrs. M called me to let me know she had just walked home after her car wouldn't start. (She wasn't too far and the girls behaved.)
My brain began to melt because the last thing I wanted to do that night was drop a few hundred bucks I don't have on a car I don't like. I swore and stomped around and maintained a general pissy attitude the rest of the day. So after work I inspected under the hood. I don't really know what I'm looking at but I thought, "Hey, let's take the battery to Autozone to have it tested." I was pretty sure I bought the battery over a year ago and I'm pretty sure that I bought the cheapest piece of crap that they had, so it was conceivable that the battery was dead. Possibly by it's own hand. Either way, it's the only thing I could think to do.
A grumpy old man at Autozone tossed my battery into a little black box, hooked up some jumper cables that were connected to some kind of machine. A number flashed on a digital display and he said, "Battery's fine. The post's look like hell. Don't you clean 'em?" To which I said, "You should clean your battery posts?" No expression registered on his face. He simply walked over to a rack, pulled off a silvery little do-hikey and said "Use this."
It was a little double ended scrub brush. One end fit over the battery posts and the other looked like a short bottle scrubber and cleaned the cable connectors. I tried it and the car started up great.
So I worried a whole afternoon of my life away for a $2.49 tool. Also, I learned that the grumpy old man at the Newport Plaza Autozone could have screwed me over for a battery or an alternator or a flux capacitor, but didn't. To give myself some Instant Karma, I called to thank grumpy old Autozone man today and let him know I will not go anywhere else but his fine store ever again. He answered "Whatever." and hungup.
Thanks grumpy old Autozone guy - even if you don't care.
Stay You.
Back to Main Page
My brain began to melt because the last thing I wanted to do that night was drop a few hundred bucks I don't have on a car I don't like. I swore and stomped around and maintained a general pissy attitude the rest of the day. So after work I inspected under the hood. I don't really know what I'm looking at but I thought, "Hey, let's take the battery to Autozone to have it tested." I was pretty sure I bought the battery over a year ago and I'm pretty sure that I bought the cheapest piece of crap that they had, so it was conceivable that the battery was dead. Possibly by it's own hand. Either way, it's the only thing I could think to do.
A grumpy old man at Autozone tossed my battery into a little black box, hooked up some jumper cables that were connected to some kind of machine. A number flashed on a digital display and he said, "Battery's fine. The post's look like hell. Don't you clean 'em?" To which I said, "You should clean your battery posts?" No expression registered on his face. He simply walked over to a rack, pulled off a silvery little do-hikey and said "Use this."
It was a little double ended scrub brush. One end fit over the battery posts and the other looked like a short bottle scrubber and cleaned the cable connectors. I tried it and the car started up great.
So I worried a whole afternoon of my life away for a $2.49 tool. Also, I learned that the grumpy old man at the Newport Plaza Autozone could have screwed me over for a battery or an alternator or a flux capacitor, but didn't. To give myself some Instant Karma, I called to thank grumpy old Autozone man today and let him know I will not go anywhere else but his fine store ever again. He answered "Whatever." and hungup.
Thanks grumpy old Autozone guy - even if you don't care.
Stay You.
Back to Main Page
posted by Howard McEwen, CFA at Thursday, September 23, 2004
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