German Engineering strikes again

The last two days have been absolutely beautiful to run in. As a valet at Disney's Swan and Dolphin hotel, I've been waiting ALL SUMMER for this kind of weather (It's tough to run when it's 98 degrees and drive back in a car that's 150 with the windows up).


Anyway, today I ran out to the back of our parking lot to retrieve a hot little BMW convertable (as soon as I saw it, I remembered parking it yesturday because I couldn't seem to find "Reverse" on the stick shift). Anyways, I jump in a pray that I can get it in reverse (or I'll look silly using my foot with the car in neutral). I turn the key and rrrrrrr rrrrrrr rrrrrrr; dead battery.... YUCK.


I run back and let the shift manager know about the problem.... hoping he'll send someone to jumpstart the car..... he sent me. So I run back out to the boonies with the car charger and "attempt" to figure out BMW engineering (I can drive cars just great.....but don't ask me to look under the hood). It took me a good 5 minutes to find the hood release (I looked everywhere I could think of). Then another 3 minutes to figure out the hood latch. TA DA! I'm in.... now where in world is that battery? After looking high and low, I found a cable that had a red casing on it (looked like a terminal to me), so I put the positive clamp on it and the negative clamp on the edge of the car..... NOTHING. I unclamped everything I touched the two clamps together..... BIG SPARKS, it's hot! After another 4 minutes of floundering the calvary arrived; two other valets and the shift manager. They schooled me very quickly that in these cars the engine is under the hood, but the battery is under the trunk boards (duh). So a quick jump later the car roars to life and the calvary charges back to the ramp....... leaving me to use my foot to get it in reverse.


Thankfully, the guest was very understanding.