‘Some bunny get us out of here!’

It keeps going and going…

No plug for the popular battery intended, but it “was” the one my wife and I pinned our desperate hopes on this past weekend.

I digress.

I had last Thursday and Friday off. My wife and I decided to spend it and Saturday and Sunday in Savannah.

We took her little Miata. (Versus my truck). I did all of the driving over, all of the driving while there and all of the driving back. 

“No honey. You just relax,” I said. “I’ll make the difficult sacrifice.” 

(Truth: Six speeds, top down, ballcap on … couldn’t let my bald crown turn into a beet … weaving in and out of traffic on those city streets like a NASCAR driver on a road course. “Somebody pinch me. I think I’m in Heaven!”)

We got there. Checked into the hotel.

“We have time enough to go to one of the antique stores (you wanted to go to),” my wife said.

“We do,” I replied.

I put the address into Google Maps. We were three miles from “downtown”. Maps said it would take 32 minutes to get there. “Hmm? Okay.”

After a turn here, a turn there, a turn everywhere, me: “Looks like we’re going to have to rely on your phone to get back. Mine’s in the red and I don’t think it’s going to last much longer.”

Her: “Afraid I can’t help you. Mine’s about to shut down, too.”

Me: “How can yours be about to shut down! It’s been on the (USB) charger (the car’s port) the whole time!”

Her: “I don’t know.”

A little investigation – swapping out phones, looking at the little charging icon at top – or lack thereof – revealed the charger had simply stopped working!

A short time later my phone went dead.

A short time after that, her phone went dead.

Uh oh. 

Me: “How in the world are we going to find our way back to the hotel!”

What she could have said: “I don’t know. You’re the ‘driver’, remember.”

I then noted her car had a cigarette lighter socket.

“Aha.” We went on a search for a USB port that plugged into it. Two gas stations later. Nothing. We continued to drive.

“A Dollar General,” we both screamed at the same time.

I went into the Dollar General. They had one. I bought it. I came out, took it out of its packaging, plugged it in. Nothing. Nada. 

“It doesn’t work,” I said despairingly like a man who had just been told he has about an hour to live. 

Her: “Look. There’s an electrical outlet in front of the store.” Sure enough. There it was. Right next to the entrance. I walked over to it ready to stand there for however long it took. Even though, I thought, it might make me look like one of those people – no judgment intended – who hang out in front of stores asking for handouts. (Or like in the old days as a youth: “Hey mister. Will you buy us some beer?”)

Regardless. The plug had no current flowing through it.

I remembered seeing a Best Buy. A lightbulb came on. (If only I could plug my phone into its source.) “Maybe they’ll have a battery backup that has some charge to it?”

We drove. We passed a couple on the street corner, arms pointing this direction, that direction.

“Um hum. They’re as lost as we are,” I thought. I also saw a huge Waffle House sign like a mile up in the air. “Um hum. If only we were staying there,” another random thought. “We could find that from anywhere.”

Enter the bunny … in a sea of options – other battery backups. I remembered the promise. “You better be good to your word,” I said to him in my mind.

I bought it. I opened it. It had a little button that would display the charge it had left on it. I sheepishly reached for it and pushed it … 77 percent.

“Thank you Jesus!”

I plugged in my phone. Charged it up enough to bring it to life and back to the hotel we went. Crisis averted.

Remember back in the day when we used to keep a handful of paper maps in our glovebox? The passenger would unfold them deep and wide enough to cover a picnic bench, then squint with all of their might to find an itsy bitsy spider – aka road – so you knew where you were and where you needed to go to get where you were going? 

Well, those bad boys are about to make a comeback in our household. (Note: As a matter of fact, we were already at the antique store when this whole thing went south, so I said, “Let’s just go ahead and go in here and deal with this afterwards.” While in there, though, I told my wife to look for a map of Savannah. And she actually found one. Unfortunately, you’d have to be living in the 1800s for it to have been of any use.)