Boost The Battery In Your Brains

I used to live in a three-story house with two other families. The woman who lived on the first floor acted as a sort of concierge and interfering busybody for the landlords. She was always on my case about things that did not exist or noise at times I was not home. God protect me if I was typing or walking across the kitchen floor after midnight.

She absolutely refused to ever lock up at night, leaving all the connecting doors unlocked and wide open. Then, she would complain if someone came in and took things off her porch. The other family and I kept asking her to lock up at night, but she said we were ridiculous and didn’t trust people. (We didn’t; our city is notorious.)

Still, we were all pretty friendly and we all hung out once or twice a week.

Her cousin moved in with her and her kids and, starting in the winter, she and the cousin would wake me up in the morning because their car batteries were dead; since I had the only functioning car, I would throw on boots and a jacket and run downstairs in my pajamas to give them a boost.

After I had done this several times over the course of the month, I asked why on earth their batteries were always dead.  

“Oh, someone keeps coming in here at night,” they explained, “and they open all our car doors, turn all the lights on, and leave them to sit all night long.”

“That’s awful!” I said. “Shouldn’t you tell the police?”

“Nah, it’s just some kid feeling his oats.”

She watched me unlock my car, get in, and start it up so I could give her the boost.

She nudged her cousin and said, “Do you believe her? She locks her car at night!” The cousin expressed similar disbelief and disdain. They actually called me distrustful and mean for locking the car.

I looked at them both for a few minutes while the car recharged and finally, I said, “Well, I may be mean and distrustful, but which one of us has a car that is able to boost everyone else’s?”

They just looked at me as if I was positively evil and repeated again that I must be small-minded and racist for locking my car at night.

“Okay,” I said. “From now on, you’d better find someone else to boost your cars, because we are going to pretend that mine is also possessed of a dead battery.”

I was so glad when I was able to find a nicer, bigger rent in a way nicer part of town.