I AM HAVING THE WORST 2 WEEKS EVER.

I am having the worst 2 weeks ever.

My Ford Focus wouldn't start, friend took out the battery, charged it, and discovered the alternator blew. He replaced it. Cost me $250 for the part, and a bottle of rye for the labour.

My lawn mower's battery wouldn't charge. Replacement cells at Battery Depot are $90 each and I need two. $198 dolleroos. at least my lawn isn't a jungle anymore.

The Ford STILL won't start, so I take the battery out and take it to Canadian Tire where I bought it 18 months ago (4 year warranty replacement, says so right there on the battery label, plus I have the original work order and receipt). THE FUCKING SERIAL NUMBERS DON'T MATCH BECAUSE SOME FUCKNUT WROTE DOWN THE GODDAMMED WRONG NUMBER ON MY RECEIPT 1.5 YEARS AGO AND CANADIAN TIRE IS GIVING ME GRIEF. FUCKERS. The manager offers to try to charge the battery. I get a temp battery for the car and take it home, put it in but the car still won't start. Fuck! is my starter pooched too?

The magnetron in my over-the-range microwave dies. Microwave no longer heats food. Those things are $300 - $700. Fuck. Luckily, my work (which is moving to a "virtual office" format because so many employees have left recently, as a result they were selling off all of their furniture and extra monitors etc...), they still had a microwave left and I bought it for $10. So now at least I can heat the babby's bottle at 4am.

The two people I am working with on an webportal project both resign. There is now only me and one other guy on the entire tech team.

Friend suggests based on symptoms of car not-starting that I don't have a good connection to the battery. So I tighten the bolt of the battery connectors. The fucking bolt SNAPS. It is some weird T-shaped bolt.



Can Tire finally calls me back 2 days later. My battery is dead. Giving more grief about serial number over the phone. I throw my broken t-bolt and I go there in person and after about 1.5 hours I eventually get my warranty-replaced battery, free of charge. I show the guy the T-bolt, he has NEVER seen something like that before. I try my luck in the bolts section of CanTire. Spend forever trying to find something similar. No luck.

On the way home, pass an Auto Source and stop in. Same story, never seen it before.

I go to Home Depot, take a look but find nothing. Show the guy in the bolts section the T-bolt. Never seen anything like it.

So I have a new battery, but I am still missing a bolt. still don't know if my starter is also pooched because I can't hook up the battery with a missing t-bolt. Battery is just sitting in the garage at the moment.

Call up Battery Depot, hoping that they might have heard of it. They check, they have nothing like it, but suggest calling Auto Electric on Broad St. Call them, describe it, and they have trouble understanding my description, but then they looked and they said they had it! Did I want a 2 pack, 25 pack or 50 pack? "2 pack," I say. Success!

Get there. They hand me a standard set of (wrong sized) bolts but with a square head. Fuck. They flip through their massive catalog. Nothing even remotely close to this T-bolt. I am beginning to think that Ford forged this aberration of a bolt specifically for my car back in 2003 and then destroyed the mold, lest the power of the T-bolt ever falls into the hands of evil.

Go to Part Source and wait forever. Those guys have never seen anything like it either.

Google the fucker. A bunch of Ford forum threads on this mysterious T-bolt, all broken with nary a parts person anywhere who has heard or seen anything like them before. (I revise thought train on t-bolt and figure that 9 t-bolts were forged for man, 7 t-bolts for the dwarves, 3 for the elves, and then one secret t-bolt to rule them all). A bunch of ebay entries for VW and Audi T-bolts, so they MUST exist. Most are $20 and don't give sizes (I need a 1/4 inch bolt, about 3/4 inch long), will need to investigate the internet deeper this evening.

Because of all of these expenses, still can't afford to buy Mario Kart 8. But I am also worried about my job because fuck our office has shrunk from 70 employees to 17, and are now "virtual". But as a bonus I am working from home right now while I am on the bench between gigs. And by working I mean RMN and games. But because life has been fucking hectic this month, didn't get a chance to start my indie game contest entry. i could have really used that $10,000.

And the kids are driving me nuts. And the little one just pooped. And I am out of rye.

Yeah, the "Battery Cable - Positive" from Fordparts.com is $109. It has that t-bolt. I read a bit more forum posts about other people's issues with it, and one guy said it is in fact a "factory part".

http://www.focusfanatics.com/forum/showthread.php?t=160432

time to buy a 30 cent hose clamp.

Dyhalto has a talent for cutting right to the heart of the matter

"Fixed" it with a standard $1.29 hose clamp. Wrapped it around the battery clamp to tighten it. Car starts now!

Also, the other day the city was clearing out overgrown trees and bushes from the path beside my house, and I had a sizable pile of pine tree branches I had trimmed earlier this spring sitting next to my house, and the city GRABBED THEM AND TOOK THEM AWAY WHEN THEY WERE DOING CLEAN UP!!

Also also, I just got word that I got an interview for a new gig this Friday for a job I am a really good fit for.