Close to Nowhere

I like gadgets, all kinds. I'm a real sucker at a fair, when you go past all those wonderful kitchen gadgets that work amazingly well...until you get them home and amazingly, they don't work.

The automatic needle threader on my computerized sewing machine has stopped working. Daughter Dana, who is a whiz at fixing things, kind of fixed it. It works for her, but not me.

So, I bought this little gadget I'd seen on the internet ­ a little plastic thing that you pull the thread down with and it somehow pokes it in the needle eye. I can't see a needle eye. I have a huge magnifying glass that hangs off the top of my sewing machine that I try to thread my needle with. It sometimes, takes 10-15 minutes. Surprisingly, the little plastic thing I bought to thread the needle doesn't work. I'm sure I'm doing it wrong, but, still...

I got in my car one day last week. Son Kris and I were headed to the doctor's office. The car had worked just fine a couple days before when I'd run a couple errands. But that day, the ignition switch wouldn't even budge. Interior lights wouldn't come on, horn wouldn't honk, steering wheel wouldn't lock. Naturally, I went into full panic mode.

Normally, I don't need to put the key in the ignition switch. The car knows if the key is there (magic, I'm sure) and locks, unlocks and cranks, as long as the key is in my purse near the car.

The last time I'd driven the car, it told me all the way home that "key isn't found." I'd waggled the key fob in front of it several times and the light stayed on, but so did the car, so I ignored it.

The first thing I did (after I panicked) was call grandsonin-law Mitch. A truck driver, he was in Nashville, Tenn. But, except for the fact the ignition switch wouldn't budge, he thought it was the battery. He called his dad, who also thought it was the battery. He also said he'd come look at it in the morning.

I had nothing else to do, so I Googled to find out why the ignition switch wouldn't turn. Every place on the internet that I looked, including the Nissan site, said that my antitheft system had been triggered. I didn't even know I had an anti-theft system. I tried every trick offered on how you told the computer in your car that you really hadn't stolen the car, that you had the key and really needed it to start.

Nothing worked. The ignition switch wouldn't even move, let alone turn. I even took the key fob apart and put the key in the ignition. Nothing...

Mitch and Remy got there the next morning. He'd stopped and bought a battery checker because he still thought it was the battery, even though Google said it was the anti-theft system.

It was the battery, dead as a doornail. It seems like when I'd taken the garbage can up to the road five days before, I'd left the hook part of the strap I pull the can up with in the latch of the hatchback of the car, just barely; just enough to leave the light on, for five days.

I almost cried when, after a trip to get a battery and installing it, Mitch turned the key and the car cranked right up.

Seems like when the battery dies, it shuts down everything on my car. Everything. Even the ignition switch.

Seems like my car is filled with gadgets. God bless 'em, I still love gadgets.