This is about the fifth time I’ve had to get the Mini jumped. It’s a 1992 Mini Rover (basically a Mini Cooper before BMW bought Rover out) and there is no signal to let you know that you’ve left the lights on. There’s a 2km tunnel right before you get to the house and you have to turn on your lights for the tunnel. It gets us every time. However, this battery drain was different. A light that I’ve never seen work before (we’ve owned the car for 10 months) went on and stayed on all night. It was the overhead light (although you’d have to call it an overside light because it’s not in the center of the car, but off to the side where a hanger would be in a normal car) and once I got the car jumped and figured out why it had died I was ok. But, DJ was not. DJ had to take the bus to the train station, take the train and then walk to work. It made him an hour and twenty minutes late for work, which is not something the Navy takes to kindly.

Now, what I don’t understand, is why you would design a car that not only fails to chime when you open the door and leave your lights on, but also makes it so hard to tell that you’ve left them on at all. Or even tell that that is the lights switch in the first place! In the photo of the control panel (under the CD player) there are five switches. The lights are the last and blank switch between the hazards lights and the choke. ??? It’s a crazy car, but I don’t think we’ll have any problem selling it. All the sailors seem to love it. We get comments on it all the time.

I waited until about 11am and then while my neighbor was talking to the mailman, I walked over to him with the jumper cables in my hand and pointed to the car. “Oh…bat-ta-rie?” he asked. Nodding, I walked over to the trunk (which is where the battery is…don’t ask me why). And we jumped it. I went on base and got my groceries and of course, bought the guy that helped me jump the car a gift of chocolate (Godiva, yum).

Gift giving is a very important custom here. They had actually been over here the day before because they JUST moved in and had given us a gift of kitchen towels. When you move in you’re supposed to give all your neighbors a small gift. I’ve gotten tea towels, laundry detergent, rice, celebration rice, sake, and cookies. Yea cookies!