New Year off to a rough start.

I have been putting off writing anything because I feel like the first post of the year is such a big deal. But, here it is, January second (almost Jan. 3rd), and I really don’t have anything that amazing to share. In fact, if anything, this year has been a bit of a stresser already. So here is a big fat long story. I don’t do this often, but I don’t currently retain a therapist, so I’m just going to spill it all right here.

Our new year’s eve activity was pretty cool. We  handed out sparkling cider in Central Park during the midnight run. New Year’s day got off to a bit of a rough start. We woke up and walked to the car, so that we could go visit Piper and the battery was dead. Whoops! Some idiota (me) left the lights on the day before and completely killed Greta. There was a dude getting into a car (a 2010 BMW 328i) parked about 3 cars back, who I walked back and asked if he wouldn’t mind giving us a jump. He said that he would, but it wasn’t his car, European cars are temperamental, etc.. After which, he politely declined. A few minutes later he (I will refer to him as the “bimmer dude” from here on) pulled up and opened the trunk (that is where batteries are located on most BMW’s), and was like “you got wires, man?” I informed him that I did, and proceeded to crawl through the back seat of our car, into the trunk (the trunk won’t open when the batter is dead), and pulled out our jumper cables. This is where things got bad.

The bimmer dude was on the sidewalk, on his phone. I was hooking up the cables, when his family came out and started observing/remarking on the situation. They were totally cool and nice second generation Russians. Reagan was in our car. I told her to try to start it. Suddenly, the bimmer was no longer running. It was deader than dead. The electrical system was clearly fried. I mean, at the very least, it was the main fuse and possibly some relays. So, the bimmer dude, hiding his frustration well, got back into his car and tried in vain to start it. Not only was the bimmer failing to start, the instrument panel would not light up, and the key was locked into the ignition. Meanwhile, I’m starting to feeling like complete rubbish. I decided to send Reagan back to our apartment to fetch some band aids for my bleeding hand, which I had managed to slice open somewhere in the mix. It turns out that bimmer dude and family had an uncle in Yonkers who was on his was to try to remedy the situation. Meanwhile, everyone over 18 in bimmer dude’s camp, was trying to chain smoke away all of their anxiety. It turns out that the bimmer is zip car that the kind Russians had rented for the day to drive to Jersey and visit some family before they returned to TX. This only made be feel like more of a douche-a-tard.

About now, awesome euro-uncle shows up in an Audi S-8 with family in the back seat. I’m totally perving on his car, big time. His car was so great that I almost got distracted from the awful situation that I had caused by leaving Greta’s lights on.  Even though I’m absolutely convinced that the bimmer issue is fuse/relay related, the people at zip-car said that their low jack computer indicated that the bimmer only needed to be jumped. So euro-uncle positioned his gorgeous S-8 in front of the bimmer, where he could connect the cables. Of course this solved nothing. Still no instrument lights or anything. The Russian mom suggested that since euro-uncle was there anyway, he might as well give it another shot jumping Greta– which they did. This time it was successful. So now, Reagan is sitting in the passenger seat of Greta, with the butt warmers blazing, battery safely charging off of Greta’s cute little Bosch alternator. Meanwhile, bimmer is still sitting in the middle of the road, windows open, deader than dead.

At this point, I was furiously googling the location of the main fuse block for 2010 328i’s, while bimmer dude was exchanging heated words with the zip car rep, on the phone (intermittently parsed by bursts of Russian [also heated] between bimmer dude and euro-uncle). I was about ready to just hand over the keys to Greata, along with my checkbook, at this point. Partially because I felt so horribly bad, and partially because I felt like I was about to have a hit out on me, by the Russian mafia. So, I decided to compliment euro-uncle on his super-nice whip. He smiled from ear to ear, was was like “Kom. Leyt me show you engine.” Then he popped the hood and we both admired the beautifully crafted work of German engineering that was purring away in front of us. But this glorious moment was heavily tainted by the fact that bimmer dude was still arguing on the phone with zip car/chain smoking, and that the bimmer was still just a large silver brick blocking the road.

I mean, I was trying to help. I had located and pulled the cover off of the main fuse block on the bimmer. But I was starting to feel like my presence (along with Reagan and Greta’s) was only exacerbating the situation. So, I told bimmer dude that I felt like complete [poop] about the situation and asked him if he wanted me to stick around, or if there was anything that he thought I could do to help. He was on hold with zip car at the moment. He told me that I should get going, but to leave the cables with him. I gladly handed over the cables. I stepped into Greta and maneuvered her over onto the sidewalk, to the closest corner (the dead bimmer was blocking us into our parallel parking spot from the street side). The minor quid pro quo of handing off the cables to bimmer dude was not soothing the sick feeling I had inside about ruining the day of an entire family, after they were trying to do us a solid by jumping Greta.

I was on autopilot the whole way to See Piper. I had an ok visit with her. When we returned home in the evening, the dead bimmer was still sitting there, now abandonned in the road.. windows open glaring at me. I mean, I guess I need to just let it go. But, I’m still kind of feeling like crap about it. I just hope that something seriously– seriously good happens to that awesome Russian family who got totally screwed over on New Year’s day 2011 for trying to be nice and lend a hand. I’m trying to take comfort in the fact that it was a zip car. And I and hope to heaven that those Russian good Samaritans won’t have to pay a dime out of their own pockets.

So that is my really long, and kind of depressing story about how I rang in the new year.