While visiting our youngest at college for a weekend, her battery died in her Jeep. I didn’t have jumper cables in the car we took with us. However, one of the other college dads had a jumper box he was willing to hook up just so we could get her Jeep started. He put the cables on and nothing happened, except that her wench on the front of her jeep began to retract.
We never used the wench and I was shocked that it was moving when the dad tried to jump off the battery. I went to the auto store in our car and bought a new set of jumper cables because I couldn’t get the battery out of her Jeep – did not have tools with me to do so. I jumped off her Jeep and the wench didn’t move.
I drove her Jeep to the auto store so they could check the charge. I knew it was dead and I was right. But, a funny thing happened when the technician went to connect the batter tester to the battery – her wench started up again. I immediately told him to stop.
Then, I pointed out that he had the cables backwards. He stammered something and then said that the battery was installed backwards and he just put the cables on the way he had on every other battery using muscle memory. Meaning, he didn’t actually look at the battery cables and connect the correct ones – black to black and red to red. That wrong connection was what made the wench move when he connected it and the helpful dad connected it.
I stopped to read the instructions and look at the cables when I used the jumper cables I had purchased. I wasn’t going to endanger myself or anyone else. So, I was extra careful. But both the helpful dad and auto technician didn’t bother to see the obvious, they just assumed the battery was in the order they were used to and attached the jumper cables accordingly. Both times, they were wrong.
If you have ever tried to jump a bad battery or been around when someone has, you know that there are two battery cables. One is red and the other is black. The red one is very visibly marked with a large red cover and a red cable. No matter how dirty your engine gets, it is nearly impossible to confuse the red and black cables. You can only do this if you ignore the obvious. And, that is exactly what they did.
How many times have we ignored the obvious only to have something in our lives go wrong as a result? It happens more times that we could imagine. And it’s incredibly frustrating every single time!
Ignoring the obvious only to have it thrown back in your face makes me feel like an idiot. I think we believe that the more complicated the issue, situation, or problem, the more complicated the solution. However, sometimes, the best solution is the simplest one.
Had we taken just a little time to really look at what we are doing, we might realize that the solution is staring us right in the face.
The solution for our daughter’s Jeep that night was a new battery. Unfortunately, the first technician at the auto store did not feel comfortable installing a new battery. So, I ended up going to their sister store 10 minutes down the road and that technician was very helpful and had the old battery out and the new battery installed in no time!
I thanked him profusely and was grateful that he knew the obvious and was able to help.
Next time when I’m faced with a situation I may have a hard time solving, I will take a little more time and look for the obvious solution first. If that doesn’t work, I’ll try other solutions until one succeeds.
