(no subject)
You know how they say to do at least one thing a day that scares you?
Guess what *I* did first thing today?
I jump-started my car...by myself! (Well, of course, someone else was there w/ his car, but he didn't know what to do either.)
Okay, you can laugh, but considering that I thought the battery was going to blow up and blind me and I'd have to spend the rest of my life whacking people in the shins with my cane, it was pretty damn courageous of me. My abject fear of batteries began when I was a bored child at home during the summer and whose parents took me only infrequently to the library, and having no friends within a five mile radius (thanks to attending a private school across town) and banned from embarrassing my brother by hanging out with him and his friends, I compensated by reading every single written material in the house. This list includes not only random adult-level books owned by my parents, but also things like the dictionary, the KOA campground brochure, and my mom's medical dictionary (which is how I learned how sex works, and I thought it was most boring concept ever until I was in my teens). In the Yellow Pages 911 section I learned how to rescue a person who got struck by a downed power line and how to administer first aid and rescue breathing.
...In the car manual, I read CAUTION: BATTERY MAY EXPLODE, ALWAYS USE EYE PROTECTION. Which no one takes seriously, except when you're a child of 8, this makes an impression. You know what else made an impression? That sticker on the side of the water heater/furnace that warns you about explosive vapors and illustrates it helpfully with a graphic of someone being consumed by flames. To this day I won't go near the furnace.
But this morning, when the car wouldn't start, I quailed for a moment and seriously considered not going to work OR, alternatively, to call the hubby to come back from work and take care of it (I don't have AAA anymore, sigh), but then I caught myself. One of my major feminist principles is that women should be able to take care of things themselves w/o depending on anyone else, so I girded up my metaphorical loins and said IMMA DO IT, IMMA SHOW THIS BATTERY WHO'S BOSS.
So here I am at work, unblinded and whole, and proud of myself.
Although if the furnace ever breaks....I'm not going near that thing.
Guess what *I* did first thing today?
I jump-started my car...by myself! (Well, of course, someone else was there w/ his car, but he didn't know what to do either.)
Okay, you can laugh, but considering that I thought the battery was going to blow up and blind me and I'd have to spend the rest of my life whacking people in the shins with my cane, it was pretty damn courageous of me. My abject fear of batteries began when I was a bored child at home during the summer and whose parents took me only infrequently to the library, and having no friends within a five mile radius (thanks to attending a private school across town) and banned from embarrassing my brother by hanging out with him and his friends, I compensated by reading every single written material in the house. This list includes not only random adult-level books owned by my parents, but also things like the dictionary, the KOA campground brochure, and my mom's medical dictionary (which is how I learned how sex works, and I thought it was most boring concept ever until I was in my teens). In the Yellow Pages 911 section I learned how to rescue a person who got struck by a downed power line and how to administer first aid and rescue breathing.
...In the car manual, I read CAUTION: BATTERY MAY EXPLODE, ALWAYS USE EYE PROTECTION. Which no one takes seriously, except when you're a child of 8, this makes an impression. You know what else made an impression? That sticker on the side of the water heater/furnace that warns you about explosive vapors and illustrates it helpfully with a graphic of someone being consumed by flames. To this day I won't go near the furnace.
But this morning, when the car wouldn't start, I quailed for a moment and seriously considered not going to work OR, alternatively, to call the hubby to come back from work and take care of it (I don't have AAA anymore, sigh), but then I caught myself. One of my major feminist principles is that women should be able to take care of things themselves w/o depending on anyone else, so I girded up my metaphorical loins and said IMMA DO IT, IMMA SHOW THIS BATTERY WHO'S BOSS.
So here I am at work, unblinded and whole, and proud of myself.
Although if the furnace ever breaks....I'm not going near that thing.