This morning I got into the car with the kids, turned the ignition key and… the car groaned, then I groaned. Yep, flat battery. Dammit. The lights weren’t left on, honest. So I rang the RACV. The bloke on the phone was cheerful, probably because it wasn’t his car that had broken down. 20-40 minutes, he said. He was right, too, they got there in about 30 minutes.
There were two guys in the van. I’m guessing one was the trainee, because the other one seemed to be bossing him around a bit. The main guy was amazed the battery had lasted so long – it was the original one, and the car is eight years old. They jumpstarted the car, and I asked if they could put a new battery in, and how much it would cost. He said they could – "they" meaning the collective mass of people that the RACV consists of. He said he’d get his battery-wielding colleague to drop in and install it.
Half an hour and $129 later (the battery dude talked me into the extra super dooper high grade one, because I mostly do short trips), a shiny new blue battery was in the car, and it was starting up quicker than ever.
