You know what's awesome? Warning lights on a dashboard that ACTUALLY PORTEND THE FUTURE. I have never encountered this before, ever, but it happened today. We were around Fife on our way back up to Seattle after spending my day off in Tacoma, and Jared's battery warning light comes on. He starts obsessing. What if my alternator dies? What if we break down? What if my car dies? I can't have that happen! Waaaah! and on and on. And I'm all, warning lights don't tell the truth, silly! Because mine don't. But then, 30 miles later, he's like, hey, my dashboard lights are getting dimmer. Fuck! And then, just as we crest the hill on the I-5 shipping channel bridge, like within sight of my exit, the car starts growling and making BAAAAD noises. And continues to do so all the way down the bridge, onto the exit and to the stoplite. And then we stop. And then the car stops. FUCK. And it won't turn back on. FUCK FUCK.

So we yell for a few minutes, attract the interest of a bum-lady (who proceeds to tell us what to do) and try to push it. No dice. All the while, people are pulling up behind us and wondering why we're not going. It's amazing how long someone will sit behind a car WITH ITS FUCKING BLINKERS ON and wait for it to go. And wait. And wait.

And then this car pulls up next to us and starts yelling. Hey! That's my roommate! Mike yells "I'll be back" at us and drives off. And then he pulls up in the grass by the bus stop on the other side, and comes over and we sit back and watch the distruction for awhile. Watching idiots be idiots is quite fun. One girl actually sat behind our car for almost a light cycle and a half before she realized that the car wasn't moving.

Then probably about 15 minutes after Mike shows up, the bum lady actually spouts somethhing useful - why don't you just jump it from his car? DUHHHH. So we pull Blue Steele up heading backwards on the off-ramp facing our car, and pull out the jumper cables. Then we stare at the jumper cables like morons because no one is ever REALLY sure how it goes. Red to the red terminal, black to the black, but don't you have to ground it? Fuck. No one knows. Then, the tow truck from AAA comes to save the day, puts the cables on the batteries (I SWEAR you had to connect it to the frame, not the battery, but I guess the tow truck guy would know) and we start the car. And make it almost all the way home only to have it die before Jared pulls it into a parking spot. So we pushed it. And it was craziness.

In other news, I think I might start a letter-writing campaign to Richard Branson to get him to start something like the X-Prize but for ridiculously efficient engines and alternative fuels instead of space travel. Because really, that dude has too much money and needs somewhere else to spend it