I'm standing in the cold darkness of early morning. I'm in the middle of the street my hands, coat, and arms are covered in a filthy, brown, salt dust. I'm late for work and blocking the entire street. I look around and I wonder just how the heck I ever ended up in this place.
Flashback to 3 years ago. It's Christmas and Jessi had hinted that she wanted xmradio in her car for her present. We load up and head to Best Buy where after much deliberation we pick out a lower end radio and set up a contract for service. The salesman assures me that the install is easy and after many hours of cursing up a storm and running wires all through Jessi's Civic she is jamming out to the best that satellite radio has to offer.
Lets move forward a couple of years to January 3rd 2009. Jessi, Ryan and I are sitting in our brand new Honda Odyssey. The Civic has been left behind as we motor back to Kansas City from the dealership in Lawrence. Our excitement is complete, this vehicle has everything! Absolutely everything, plus the radio is even XM ready! I'm excited about getting the radio transferred over to our new car so we can listen to satellite radio in the minivan.
3 weeks ago. After hours of searching the internet and calling and visiting the dealership I am informed that our XM Ready stereo is only READY for the dealership to install a $600 attachment in order for it to work. Nice.
2 1/2 weeks ago. I have called XM radio to let them know we are done with their service, thank you very much. 30 minutes later I'm the proud owner of an xm radio for my truck with the assurance that it will be super easy to install. (SUCKER)
2 weeks ago. My new radio arrives in the mail complete with chinese installation instructions and an installation kit that doesn't work with my truck, even though I was assured it would. After a few hours of upset calls to customer service representatives that couldn't care less I decided to modify the kit and use some double sided tape to make it work in my truck.
7 1/2 days ago. I am happy again. The radio works, though it doesn't seem to turn off when I take my keys out of the truck. I assume that it's supposed to do that because I'm a moron.
Yesterday morning..... finds me in the street. I awoke, showered, shaved, and loaded up my truck for work only to find that it wouldn't start. My new wonderful XM radio had drained my battery down to nothing.
My wonderful jumper cables were woefully too short to make it across my garage to our Odyssey. At that moment I have a great idea. (Remember I'm a moron) I will push the truck out into the driveway and then back the odyssey up and give myself a jumpstart and be on my way.
2 things that my uncaffineated brain failed to recognize.
1. My truck barely fits in my garage and I have to fold the mirrors in to even get it inside.
2. My driveway is sloped at an angle. Quite an angle as it turns out.
Everything starts out ok. I fold my mirrors in, grab the car near the door handle, and begin slowly pushing my truck out of the garage. When my F150 gets halfway out I realize that I'm going to have to get in front of the truck to push or i will be smashed by the mirrors up against the sides of the garage.
It's right about that time that the rear wheels started to really descend down that slope. My truck decided it wasn't going fast enough. I of course had just let go of my door handle and moved around to the front of the truck to avert disaster.
After running down my driveway and almost getting run over by my big green monster I manage to get behind it and slow it down enough to keep it out of the neighbors living room. Sweet!
I pull the Odyssey out spin it around and face it towards my truck. In order to pull this off I have blocked the entire street. There isn't any going past me at this point. I own the road.
That's when I found out that it is hard to hook up jumper cables in the dark with no flashlight or garage light. Plus that shower has made my hair wet and I'm getting cold. I didn't plan for 30 minutes in the cold dang it.
10 minutes later I'm driving down the highway towards work, running late but glad to have my sweet commercial free radio jamming out the latest-greatest Alternative hits.
Totally worth it!
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