So, back from vacation, and I step into a giant shit show! My pickup was left at the shop to deal w/an idling issue, and I told the mechanic (and left written instructions) to call my CELL phone if anything major was up so I could discuss/approve. Early Tuesday, he calls my HOUSE phone and leaves a message "Brian, please call me to discuss the truck". No details, no indication what the issue is, and he's now closed until the New Year, so I have no idea what the state of the truck is, nor can I just go take it, due to not knowing what he's done/not done! ARRRGGGHHHHHHH!
So I go home and respond to a call from a potential customer to do a clean up of a bunch of limbs downed from the ice storm we had about a week and a half ago, and say "Sure, no problem, I'll be there in about an hour and will take care of it". Go to the yard to get the truck and the chipper, hop in the truck, and ZZZZZZZZ, no power to the truck! After getting help from a friend, figure out how to check the battery/try to jump it and discover, "Whoops, you don't have one, but 2 batteries,and they look older than Bernie Sanders." And, I don't even have a big enough vehicle to try a jump (pulling a Dan the Tree Man in the mini-van again). So yank the batteries out and then have to go to 4 different auto parts shops to find one that had them in stock. Plop down $364, and away I go. By now it's dark, so I've already missed the job I was going to do (and when I called the homeowner to explain my predicament, they said "never mind, we'll find someone else"....
) While getting the batteries out was easy, putting them back w/all the brackets & connectors was a frigging nightmare, and I had to stop before complete due to lack of daylight and to go pick up wifey from the train station.
My scotch glass will be quite large tonight...............