Adventures in mansplaining

[white_hart]

I am grateful to Past Me for buying a set of jump leads the last time (or possibly the time before that) she needed to get the RAC to come and start her car because the battery had gone flat in the garage.

I am grateful to our next-door neighbour, who was in her conservatory when I came back into the garden to tell T that the car wouldn't start and offered to come round and get her car out so we could jump-start mine (even if also a little weirded out by her saying to T that she hoped he knew what he was doing, as it was definitely a blue job rather than a pink job, as I was reading the instructions off the box the leads came in and working out what to attach where).

I am not grateful to our next-door neighbour's male partner, who then turned up and proceeded to try to tell everyone else what to do, despite his instructions contradicting the instructions on the jump leads, the instructions in the manual for my car and my memories of every time someone from a breakdown service has jump-started my car. Goodness knows what would actually have happened if I had attempted to start the car with the negative lead clamped to my battery instead of safely earthed, but fortunately I had the common sense not to do that, and eventually managed to persuade the neighbour that it would probably work better if she started her engine despite his insisting that she absolutely shouldn't do that. He had then managed to remove the leads before I even got out of the car again, even though all the instructions said to leave the leads on for a few minutes and then turn both engines off before removing them.

And after all that, by the time we'd driven to Witney it was clear that the weather was considerably showerier than the forecast had suggested, so instead of going for a walk we just went to Waitrose and then came home again, narrowly avoiding a head-on collision with a DPD van going through a long stretch of roadworks in Cassington.

Comments

[sfred]

Grr.

[white_hart]

Grrr indeed!

[alithea]

Joy.

I went to the New Year lecture at the V&A a few weeks back and the lovely speaker discussed design needing to be reclaimed from white cis men as part of her talk. When she took questions at the end, the first chap lectured us all about the origin of the rainbow flag before finally getting to his question. He seemed utterly oblivious to the irony. Funnily enough, all the women after him just asked their questions.

[white_hart]

Oh, FFS. The lack of self-awareness is astounding.

[cmcmck]

What IS it about men and instruction books?

[white_hart]

I have no idea!

[nineveh_uk]

Firstly, congratulations on sorting out the car. Second, I only hope that he takes this approach next time he needs to jump start his own car...

[white_hart]

I'm quite proud of having managed to get it started without calling the RAC out! (Of course, I don't know whether it will still start next time I try to use it or if I'll have to go through the whole thing again/get a new battery.)

[nineveh_uk]

When my sister had a car that tended to lose battery charger, she bought a pretty cheap charger from Halfords.

[white_hart]

I might look into that. My problem is just not using the car often enough to keep the battery topped up!

[green_knight]

My experience with a cheap charger is that it didn't carry enough charge to actually start my battery (VW Golf), so actual mileage may vary.

(My last car lost battery charge at a rate of knots for all the time (and batteries) I had it; this one is fine. I should find the useless charger and dispose of it.)

[sam_t]

I was about to say that we used to have a charger for the problem of having a car and not using it enough (we eventually solved it by selling the car and not getting another one), but your experience suggests that what worked for eleven-year-old Focuses four years ago may not be generalisable to other cars...

Bah to Mr. Mansplainer.

[white_hart]

I don't think I'd replace the car when it finally stops working, but it is quite nice to be able to get to out-of-the-way places to walk, which it wouldn't be worth hiring a car for as it would be for holidays. I do wonder about a charger though as there's no power in the garage it would also need a very long extension cable run across the back garden...

[sam_t]

Walks and transporting the occasional heavy and awkwardly shaped thing (I can get most things in a bike trailer or get them delivered but there are a few things that are tricky) are the only things I miss having a car for. There's a car club reasonably close but every time I look into it I conclude I wouldn't use it enough.

[white_hart]

I don't think a charger would start the battery, but the advice online suggests that once you've got the car jump-started a charger will completely fill the battery so it doesn't just go flat again.

My car has got through a lot of batteries though I think it's just because I tend to leave it in the garage for weeks on end.

[norfolkian]

Holy mansplaining, batman!

[white_hart]

It was incredible, really.

[qatsi]

I agree with your mansplainer that it's OK to disconnect more or less straight away one the car has started and is clearly running. If it struggles or stops then there's most likely a more substantial problem. But OTOH, I agree with you that earthing the connection is really quite important.

[white_hart]

I suspect that they just say that because it makes it less likely that people will accidentally electrocute themselves. I was less bothered about that than the lack of earthing and the insistence that we shouldn't need the other car to be running!

[green_knight]

Mr Mansplainer can ruin his own car in his own time. Bah.

(Which are your favourite walks? I used to live in Stanton Harcourt, do most of my shopping in Witney, and walked a lot in the area. London is just not the same.)

[white_hart]

We've mostly working our way through the AA 50 Walks in Oxfordshire. There are some really pretty ones along the Windrush Valley though yesterday we were going to do a less exciting one around Witney Lakes as I'm getting over a cold and T is coming down with one, but I wanted to take the car out as it had been three weeks and Witney has the most easily accessible Waitrose for shopping.