Stuck on the road

Sometime back I had this experience which made me realize the importance of modern conveniences in life. We all had gone out shopping at the local mall since it was a bright sunny weekend. By the time we returned to our cars, the weather had taken a turn for the worse. It seemed that all the rain clouds were ready to let loose at any moment. We hurriedly pushed the shopping cart to our old trusty car, dumped the shopping stuff into the trunk and piled into the car as quickly as we could. Just as we had gone a short distance, it started raining heavily. Driving slowly, we managed to cover quiet a distance before our car sputtered and died on us. No one wanted to venture out in the torrential rain as none of us had any raincoats with us. A couple of guys who were drenched due to the downpour were walking past, when we asked them if they could lend us a hand and push the car to the side till help arrived. We just could not sit here in the dead car and hope that it will start miraculously. We really needed to do something without getting muddy, and wet. It then dawned on us that we had something called a phone with us. It’s like – why didn’t we think of this earlier? We hunted down the number of the mechanic and told him our location. He came over mighty quick and diagnosed the problem as a weak battery and some moisture accumulation in some electrical circuits. Luckily he always carried a spare battery for these emergency calls. It took him approximately 15 minutes to get the car started with the spare battery. If it wasn’t for our cell phone, I think we would have had a much more difficult time reaching home.