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Charge!

6/7/2023

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​Well, they didn’t like my unicorn story. Phooey.
I’ve made progress on the revisions necessary on Saving Atlantis. Still have about half-way to go.
I haven’t written anything new. That erotic story I was thinking about just kind of went away.
I managed to sell quite a bit in the garage sale, but plenty more to go. I still have the wheelchair, walkers, prescription boxes, DVDs, coolers, many small wolf figurines and other wolf decorations, and other stuff. I’ll have another sale this month, I hope. If you want to do me a favor, you can tell anyone that you know who might need any of those things. No need to wait for the sale. If someone wants any of those things, they can contact me thru Facebook and we’ll work it out.
I’m going to do something different with this entry. I’m going to grumble about television commercials. No the fact that there are so many; rather, I’m to call out commercials that don’t really get it right.
When a commercial for Car Shield asks, “What are you going to do if your car breaks down?” and you don’t have Cad Shield. My thought is, “What will you do if your car doesn’t break down?” You gotta give it to Car Shield for their ads. They make it seem like Car Shield is almost a charity—you enroll, you have a car problem, they’ll fix it for you. But if you don’t have a car problem, you’ll still pay them. Car Shield’s income is between $100 and $500 million every year. Which means, of course, that a lot of people are paying in and getting nothing out.
Hey, it’s insurance. You pay in and, actually, hope you don’t need to get some of that money back by having a car problem.
Next, let’s question the ad for AutoZone. Lady comes in with her young son, says her car is starting slow, the associate there tests the car and says it just needs a charge, and it’s free. End of story. NOT! If the battery needs a charge, then either the battery or the charging system of the car needs inspection and probably repair.
Here's an old true story. During my graduate years in college I had a car! It was Rambler Rebel, I think a 1967. I started having problems with the battery. It would start fine one time, then not the other time because the battery was to drained to start the car. And the battery was still under warranty. So I took it back to Ward’s. (Montgomery Ward was still in business then. Ward’s and Sears were the two major department stores then. K-Mart was starting to make inroads.) They gave me a new battery for the partial price based on how long I’d had it.
Three days later, the battery was dead in the morning. I assured them I had not left the lights on while the car wasn’t running. They gave me a new battery, but grumbled about it. The next day, the battery was dead. They insisted on examining the electrical system and the charging system, looking for any kind of electrical part failure. They found nothing; and gave me a new battery. That was on Friday. On Saturday I drove from Greeley home to Brighton—about a fifty-mile trip. The next morning the battery didn’t have enough juice to start the car.
I’ll mention here that I had done quite a bit of night driving during this continuing episode. My father told me to take it in to his mechanic—an older guy and his crew that could really be trusted with cars. So I did, and told him the problem. It took him about ten minutes to figure it out. The belt that turned the alternator was too loose. It turned the alternator wheel, but not with enough force to keep the battery charged. He tightened it and showed my how to do that and charged my maybe $15. (This was 1973.)
I had no more problems with a dead battery. I’d check that belt every once in a while and tightened it once or twice. The engine finally croaked over about three years later.
A quick note: another stupid commercial is that pizza commercial where you get a big discount if you order on line. The narrator stresses you must order on line. But you’ve got this one guy running out of his house, his wife driving the riding mower away from the house, and nobody using their phone to order on line.
That’s enough for now; I hope you enjoyed the change of subject matter. If so, or not, please give feedback, either on my web site or even on FB.
Please take care, and read!   

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    I'm a former teacher and current warehouse grunt that loves writing.

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