Now 3 weeks ago the alternator in my car had to get replaced. The original one had gone kaput.
It was with unpleasant surprise Monday evening when driving home, I stopped at an intersection, looked down at my dashboard and saw the battery light was lit up, indicating that the battery wasn’t charging properly off the alternator. Fuck. I drove the last mile home, parked my car and then thought about what to do.
First thing was I figured to take it back to the garage that had replaced the alternator. I had the service done there, I’ve been happy with their service in the past and I hoped that if this new alternator had somehow failed, that I wouldn’t have to pay the price of getting one replaced again. Now from what I’ve read up on what happens when alternators fail, I knew that I had time in which the car would start and run before conking out. Of course, it’s a bit nerve wracking to drive a car you know will eventually conk out, but I armed myself with a number for a towing service in case it should happen on the 12 mile drive to the garage.
And oh yeah, since this garage is fairly near where I work during the day, I planned that I would drop the car off there and then walk to work.
So once it was light enough yesterday morning that headlights weren’t needed, I went out and got myself in the car, then started it once I had my seatbelt on. I had also turned off the blower fan for the heating because I wanted to run the car with minimal electricity drain. It was 18 degrees yesterday morning. I wore long johns under my work pants and put a pair of boxer briefs in my backpack. I also wore a flannel shirt over my polo shirt.
It was a bit of a cold ride up. But tolerable, the extra layers kept me from feeling chilled. It was with relief when I arrived at the garage and parked the car. Good not to have to shell out extra money on a tow. I got a drop off envelope out of the box, wrote down my info and what was going on and slid the envelope with a spare key into the envelope slot.
Then I walked. I judged that I should have enough time to make work on time if I moved briskly. Which also helped keep me warm. It’s not a bad walk overall, it’s a bit nerve wracking to walk the short distance on a fairly major road from the garage to the first smaller city street, but once you’re there then it’s pretty good and relaxing up until a section near the end where my office complex is located.
On the way up Ashbridge, I could see a truck a yellow flashing light up on top and coming towards me. I thought at first it was a garbage collection truck, up until I noticed that it was at a section where there were no houses. I also noticed what almost looked like steam falling off the back end of it. Finally I got to see enough to see what was going, it was a truck spraying salt brine on to the roadway to treat the roads for the snow predicted later that night.
I walked past it and continued. I followed the same set of turns I used back in September when this had also been done. My experience told me that was the way, the way, let me reiterate, the way to walk from the garage to my place of work when doing this. Intellectually I realized that I could make some different turns and with the squared up nature of the city blocks, there would be little to no difference in distance or time.
I went as the way that felt like a rule of how it’s done.
And I thought about that and how I have rules about how I do my runs near home. Some of those rules are quite necessary as they relate to me being a type 1 diabetic. Some are arbitrary, but they are there. They reassure me that I’m running in a productive and measurable way.
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Shortly after I arrived at work, my cellphone rang. It was the garage. Yes, the new alternator had crapped out, it wasn’t putting out enough charge to recharge the battery. It was under warranty and they were getting a new one from the supplier for me and it would be replaced free of charge. Shew. I was happy to hear that.
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So 4:00 came and I checked out of work. I pretty well reversed my morning pattern, save for changing walking on opposing side of road for a stretch that had no sidewalks on either side and was necessary for me to follow the rule when you walk on a road, walk facing traffic. So you can see if a car is coming at you too close for comfort. It astounds me when I see people walking with traffic some places. Oddly enough I would do exactly that though on the stretch of main road up to the garage. But there I have sensible reasons to override that rule of walking — the road is busy and it can a fussy wait to get a chance to cross the road safely and I would have to cross it twice if I went to the other side and then crossed back at the garage. Plus the road has larger shoulders than often found on Pennsylvania roads, so I felt like it gave me enough comfortable margin. Still, I would almost obsessively keeping turning my head back to the left to give my eye a chance to see if something was coming up badly on me.
I also got a bit stressed in the afternoon traffic in the town part of the walk. There was so much going on. So much to observe and try to account for. At an intersection with a 4-way stop sign, I got to the curb a little bit after and waited for a car to cross the intersection. Having lost the rhythm of my feet moving along, I felt my right hand tap against my pocket while waiting.
Later on I felt a great deal of relief at a crossing with a stop light when my timing was fortunate enough I didn’t have to stop. I almost exhaled a sigh of relief at that.
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I’ve rambled enough. But that, that’s only a small portion of how I’ve been thinking a lot, a lot about the rules I have and perceive in this world around me.