Eric, good story ... thanks for sharing. And that Suburban-driving Samaritan had a good idea. The morning bunch at HEB is about as nice a bunch anyone could start their day with. And I'm not just talking about the regular customers popping in for coffee, pastries, fruit, burritos, etc., but also Shella, John, Brody and the rest of the staff behind the coffee/deli counter. They're good staff and, over the years, they've become good friends.

Jeff, now that you mention, I do spot you at HEB on a fairly regular basis!

I'm usually in such a hurry...I'm missing out on these kinds of relationships. That's a shame. However, I'm not foolish enough to commit to changing anything at this point. I'm afraid I know myself too well.

"I suspect people were going out of their way not to park in my vicinity, if for no other reason than they didn't want to reveal their ignorance of the black arts of jumpstarting a car."

Then again, you would have laughed yourself silly watching me parked next to you with my hood up studiously comparing the connection order of the cables with the list of steps shown in the "users manual" that came with my coupe.

That grimoire is kept in the glove box (along with a variety of other occult automotive ritual items) for just these sorts of moments.

Then again, with a four-cylinder engine, you might be home just in time for a late lunch. ;)

The "dead car battery" was the challenge in the first issue of Make Magazine - winners just announced this week.

Apparently, if you're really smart *and* really handy, you can start a car with a cellphone battery and the alternator you removed from your car. Or with a bag of limes, some aluminum cans and a torn-up t-shirt. Or a few aspirin tablets.

They are serious. Though, I suspect, touched a bit by hubris.

I'm glad you made it home - and made a new human connection along the way. Probably the best of all likely outcomes.

That grimoire...

Had to look that one up; if I've ever seen the word before, I've long forgotten it. It's a good one.

Then again, with a four-cylinder engine, you might be home just in time for a late lunch.

Yeah, most folks don't realize that just because both cars have 12-volt batteries, they won't necessarily have the power to start one another.

Brian, I started to dismiss out-of-hand the advice you document and linked to, but after scanning over it, some of it makes sense. The idea of bringing a dead battery back to life, if only long enough for one start, is a good one, especially when alternatives are nil. And once you get the car started, you can get a lot of mileage in as long as the alternator is doing its job and you're limiting the power draw. I can attest to that fact, having driven 450 miles -- from Santa Fe to Midland -- with a completely dead battery! Another story for another time...

Reminds me of a trip to Big Bend last year in the Buzzard Wagon. We had driven all Sunday in the outbacks of Big Bend, driving the little byways and outlooks, took the long way back to Alpine via Terlingua and at dusk, pulled into a Sonic for a burger. Kman turned the key off, and then decided to jockey a little better next to the order speaker. Nada juice, deader than great great grandad Moses Weddle, turned to dust more than a century and a half past. Finally, got a fellow like your HEB friend who let the Buzzard Wagon soak some juice for about 30 minutes and we limped back to our motel. Next morning was Memorial Day...in Alpine, Texas. We did luck out and find a garage open, but that Sunday night, I slept nary a wink worrying whether we were going to be stranded for an additional 24 hours before being rescued. Then, I got the panics thinking about the chance this might have happened while we were deep in Big Bend, with only a couple o'bottles of Pacifico beer and a bag of beef jerky for sustenance.

At the garage the next morning, I told the mechanic fella to put a honking big, Bobby Labonte Interstate Battery in the Buzzard Wagon. Kman was properly impressed with my selection.

When it comes to batteries, there's no such thing as too much.

There are worse places to be stranded than Alpine, by the way. There's some great Tex-Mex in that little town, and a pretty decent museum on the Sul Ross campus. 'Course, whether anything's open on Memorial Day is a whole other question.

I find it's always best not to dwell too much on what might have been, except to remind myself of how fortunate I really am. However bad it was, it probably could have been worse! ;-)

I know that our Durango with the V8 has that huge monster of a battery and when it went south after less than two years, it wasn't cheap. You'd think the bigger the longer and the better. (uh, nevermind).

...has that huge monster of a battery...

Man, you've got that right! I'll bet that sucker weighs 60 pounds, and it wasn't the easiest thing to remove. The gunk that inevitably builds up around an old battery had frozen the long mounting bolts. Still, changing out a battery is one of the few things I can still do to a car, and it's always good for instant gratification.