When Preparedness Pays Off

The Story
Yesterday my car battery died. Thankfully I was in the driveway and could ask my neighbors for a jump. Neither set of neighbors knew how to use jumper cables and thought I was 'just so handy' for knowing how and owning a pair. (Whats up with people and jumper cables? Is it just me that thinks everyone should own a pair?) Well my battery was completely dead so jumping it didn't work. My neighbor offered to call me a tow truck but I told her it'd be much more helpful if she'd give me a lift to Auto Zone to buy another battery. She was thinking I'd need to take it to a mechanic to have them put in a new battery, she had no idea
all you needed was a ratchet set to get the battery out. She watched while I removed the battery and then drove me to get another one and stood there while I installed the new one. All the while I was explaining to her what I was doing and how the battery worked so maybe if her battery ever died she'd know what to do but more than likely she'll just call me and that's okay too.

The Lesson
The first lesson we can glean from this is stay calm and be prepared. Knowing how to troubleshoot a car and do basic tasks saved us the panic of not knowing what was wrong and the cost and time of taking it to a mechanic. Because we were forearmed with the knowledge that the battery was getting old (3.5 years of use on a 3 year battery) and knew how to change it, we didn't waste any time fixing it (it had been on the to-fix list for this week, it took it upon itself to move it up!). This experience also reiterated the importance of cross training. Papa and I both have things that we're good at but we also train one another on these things so that we won't be completely lost without one another. Papa wasn't home when all of this happened and had we not taken the time to both learn this skill Baby and I would have been stuck at home all day with no way to get errands done. As it stood though it was just a 45 minute inconvenience and then we were able to go on with our day. For those of you who practice emergency preparedness I would urge you to cross train with your family/group members so that everyone can have a basic proficiency in each aspect of preparedness.