It Might Be Your Alternator…Pt. 3

I was in a terrific mood on the day of my Abnormal Psychology final. It was my last final of the spring term and I felt prepared. I was fairly consistent in keeping up with the readings throughout the semester and the night before I did practice test questions along with two girls in my class. I was ready.

Needless to say, I was a little surprised that my good mood wasn’t shattered when my car wouldn’t start when I tried to leave for class. Maybe it was the beautiful spring day. Maybe it was the fact that I still had plenty of time before the final started. Maybe it was because my roommates were still home and I knew Jarvis would be able to give me a ride to school. I grabbed my belongings and ran back up the stairs to my apartment. Goldie and Jarvis were right where I left them—Goldie was doing the dishes and Jarvis was playing City of Heroes on his computer.

"Jarvis, I hate to ask you this," I began apologetically, "but would you mind running me to class? My car won’t start. I can find a ride back."

"Sure," Jarvis said, not looking away from the computer screen. A few seconds passed and he didn’t get up. I impatiently hopped from one foot to the other, waiting for him to get to a stopping point on the game.

"There," Jarvis said triumphantly, finally getting up. "I got to level 15."

Whoopty-doo, I thought. Let’s go.

* * *
I arrived to class 20 minutes early and sat in the front row. I was glancing over my notes when my classmates with whom I studied the night before, P.J. and Stacey, arrived and sat on either side of me.

"Ready for this?" P.J. asked.

"As ready as I can get," I responded. "We spent all last night doing every damn practice test in the book, I don’t know how much readier we can be. Hey, after the final, would you mind giving me a ride home? I didn’t drive; my car wouldn’t start."

"Sure, no problem," P.J. said, then laughed. "You and your car, I swear."

"I know," I said, shaking my head.

Just then the professor arrived and distributed the tests. After spending five minutes bubbling in all of the required information (it was times like this when I cursed my long last name), I turned to the first page and was pleasantly surprised at how easy the questions were.

Awesome! I thought. I’m gonna do great on this thing! When I got to page four, however, I realized that this was a strategy the professor employed—he started off with easy questions that progressively grew harder. I wondered why he did this and after turning it over in my head several times, I figured that he did it to boost our self-esteem and make us feel good about ourselves academically. Then, when he was sure that we were feeling good and confident, he switched to the hard questions, just to break our spirits and shatter our dream of passing his final. Professors like to screw around with students’ brains. They get some kind of sick, sadistic pleasure out of it.

Although it took me awhile, I was able to reason through the problems until I got to one where I had the answers narrowed down to catatonic schizophrenia, paranoid schizophrenia and schizophreniform disorder. To me, they were all the same, even though there were minute differences to set them apart. And even though P.J., Stacey and I spent a large majority of the night before going over those minute differences, I couldn’t recall them for the test. So instead of wracking my brain, I did "Eeeny Meeny Miney Mo" and bubbled in the answer that was "it." It was a stupid question anyway, considering that only psychologists knew enough to tell apart the different types of schizophrenia. To the layman, it’s one and the same. If describing a schizophrenic to somebody else, you would just say, "Yeah, he has schizophrenia and is taking medication for it" and leave it at that. Or, if you were an insensitive bastard, you would say, "He’s a schizoid freak. Nutty as a bowl of Planter’s." The point is that the average Joe wouldn’t take the time to differentiate between whether the person had the catatonic form, the paranoid form or the regular form.

I had to do "Eeeny Meeny Miney Mo" on a few more questions before they got easy again and then had to do it a few more times as they got harder. And so it went, until I made it through all 100 items. I didn’t even bother to check my answers because I honestly didn’t care. I did my best, my brain was mush and all I could think about was going home that weekend and not having to worry about classes and studying. Of course, I had to get my car fixed before I could make the trip, but by this time, I wasn’t even fazed. I was so used to Big Green crapping out on me that it became a normal part of my life. I turned in my test and waited for P.J. outside the classroom. She came out a few minutes later.

"Hey," I said, "when we get to my place, would you mind helping me jumpstart my car so I can take it to Meineke?"

"Sure, no problem," she said, and grinned. "You and your car, I swear."

"You don’t even have to tell me," I said. "I know."

* * *

P.J. was pretty knowledgeable when it came to cars. She parked beside Big Green and said, "Try starting up your car before we jumpstart it. And pop the hood so I can see what’s going on. It might be your alternator and if that’s the case, jumpstarting the car won’t be necessary."

"Okay," I said, "but I don’t think it’s my alternator. Last time this happened, I jumpstarted my car and it started right up."

"Really?" she asked. "Okay, then. But I still want to take a look."

I popped the hood and tried to start my car. P.J. leaned over the engine and listened. Her eyes moved over Big Green’s innards. "It sounds like it’s your alternator," she said. "Sure you want to jumpstart it?"

"Yeah," I said. "It worked last time."

"Alright."

We fastened the cables onto the respective batteries and jumpstarted Big Green. "Thanks, P.J.," I said as she removed the cables.

"You’re welcome," she said. "Have a good summer."

"Yeah, you too," I responded. "Call me sometime, alright?"

"Sure thing," she said, and drove off. I took my car to Meineke and read a magazine in the waiting room until Bob the mechanic came in to tell me what was wrong this time.

"Well," he said, wiping his hands on a towel, "it looks like it’s your alternator." I laughed and told him to fix it and as I was driving home that weekend I prayed to God that that was the last repair I would have to make on my car for a long, long time.