Light and Sound

The cold snap we had ten days ago sidelined my car. When I went out into the garage to start it and head for work, the engine wouldn't turn over so I called our auto club. It was a busy morning for roadside service guys and gals and it took about twenty for someone to call me back and offered to trouble shoot what was going on, or not going on, under the hood.

Based on my seconds of professional automotive experience (and I did not stay at a Holiday Inn Express  the night before), I told the mechanic it was the starter. He wasn't nearly as impressed with my automotive acumen as I was and suggested I go back out to garage, turn on the headlights, and then try to start the car. I explained to him as slowly and as evenly as I could that  I'd already checked the battery by honking the horn and it was fine. I repeated my suspicions about the starter.

There was a discernible pause on the phone before he repeated, yet again, what he'd just told me to do: go back out to the garage, turn on the headlights and then attempt to start the engine. I decided it was pointless to argue with him, and besides, in two minutes he'd have to agree with me anyway so I went out to the car as directed, turned on the headlights, turned the key in the ignition and and less than nothing happened.

Actually something did happen-the two points of illumination on the garage wall in front of the car, the reflection of the headlights, dimmed  as I tried to crank the engine. The car still did not start. I went back inside and explained to the mechanic on the phone that the starter was shot.

No, he said, it was the battery that had spit the bit. I was incredulous and, quite frankly, angry. How, I demanded to know did he come to that conclusion since I had checked on the battery by honking the horn and it sounded loud and clear.

I'm sure it did, he said, but you told me yourself your headlights dimmed when you tried to start the car. That means the culprit is a weak battery, no matter how loud your horn is. He explained it takes more energy to be a light than to be a horn.

For just a moment, I wasn't sure if we were still talking about cars on cold winter mornings or if we had moved on to the larger and more important topics in life. A week and a half later, I'm still not sure, but I'm thinking it was probably the latter and have decided everything I learn after I think I know it all is also knowledge.
-bill kenny