What Is That Buzzing Noise?

On Friday morning I had a lot of work to do so I stayed home while Marlene, Margaret and Shelwyn went for a walk in Lower Hutt / Petone.  Prior to the walk they dropped Margaret's car off at a tyre (that is New Zealand speak for tire) store to have the tyres rotated and the wheels balanced, and picked it up after their walk.

I later walked down the hill and met them for lunch at the cafe in Mitre 10 Mega (New Zealand equivalent of Home Depot), and had another great piece of bacon and egg pie (but I digress).

When we where getting back into the car, a buzzer sounded when Margaret opened the driver's door.  I commented that I had not heard that sound before, but all appeared normal, so off we went.  We stopped to buy tickets at the local movie theatre for the movie Argo for that night and then headed home.

At 5:20 PM we headed out (actually down.....remember all those steps) to the car to go to our 5:40 PM movie.  I was driving and found firstly that the key only opened the driver's door and then when I went to start the car, it was completely dead.  What were we to do?  Twenty minutes until movie time and at least a 30 minute walk to the theatre, but we had bought the tickets so we were going to see the show.

So we set off down the bush track to Petone, hoping that there would be taxis at the railway station (about halfway), but no such luck, so we ended up walking all the way to the movie theatre and only missed a minute or two at the beginning of the show.  We were smart enough to take a taxi home (uphill) and then Margaret called the AA to come and check the car. 

The AA person on the phone suggested that maybe the headlights had been left on, so down I went to check, and sure enough, the headlights were on and we had not noticed in the bright sunshine. 

Now we know what that buzzer means.

The AA man was very friendly, and while he was charging the battery we chatted, and discovered that Margaret had taught one of his children some years ago.  It truly is a small world.

Oh, I almost forgot....we all enjoyed Argo, which is about the 1980 storming of the American embassy in Tehran by radical students, and how 6 of the staff were helped out of the country through the Canadian embassy.  It was very American and downplayed the part played by the Canadian ambassador, but it certainly held our attention, with a lot of suspense.  Siskel and Ebert would give it two thumbs up.