The first hint was early this morning when I turned the ignition on. A hesitation of the motor turning over very slowwww and then she fired. I was off like a heard of turtles. Went to church and when I came out to go home, uh,uh. No go. Just the click, click, click and all of the lights I never see lit up on the dashboard like a Christmas tree. Called the wife to come and rescue me. I thought she carried jumper cables in her trunk. She has every other thing in her trunk, tools, chains, cat litter, first aid kit, pic nick basket, but no jumper cables. Drive home, search garage and naturally the last place you look (as always) you find them. Back to the church parking lot. Hook up the cables and nadda. No dice. She just makes the same clicking noise. Well back to the drawing board. This time I get my wife to help me push her and when we get her going I leap in and put her in first with the ignition on and let out the clutch. Hello Houston, we have ignition. I drive home and park on our street where I can get the car rolling easily. I decide that since the OEM battery is 5 1/2 years old I will replace it. I want an Interstate MTP-91 but looking through the yellow pages I find that the warehouse that I bough my last Interstate has moved across the river from Little Rock and is a good 30 minute drive from my home. I don't want an Interstate that bad. Next stop Auto Zone. They check out my battery and electrical system and my battery is a goner. More bad news. They don't have the %%WORD210%H that I need. A call to the next Auto Zone locates 3 of them. Another rolling start and I'm good to go. My only fear is that I don't let the car stall on a level or up hill grade. Funny how you never think about stalling your car unless you are a new driver to a manual tranny or you are driving down the bowels of the hood to get a new battery. I get my new battery installed right in the Auto Zone parking lot with all of the other shade trees draining their oil and fixing stuff under their hood and underneath their cars. She fires up with the twist of the key. The key beats the rolling start every time. I get home, find the radio code and per the instructions I now have my sports talk and music stations back on line. Life is good again now that my little Z baby has new juice.
). I learned a new meaning for the BMW acronym -- "Battery Might Work".
