Hi Reader

Ever had one of those days?

It all started when I jumped in the van on Wendsday morning, turned the key, and the battery was dead.

The real kicker was why the battery was dead. It was dead because I had a flat tire on Tuesday night.

Now, you are probably wondering how a flat tire can give you a flat battery. Well, it is because I am over-prepared.

I like to carry all sorts of emergency tools in my van. You never know when you (or someone else) might need them.

My main stables are,

1. A trolly jack (seriously, who wants to jack up a can with one of those pathetic little jacks they supply with the van)
2. Jumper cables - We all need them from time to time
3. A small handheld tire pump that plugs into the cigarette lighter socket
4. A battery charger and an extension cord.

As I said, I like to be prepared.

This is the reason I got the flat battery.

You see on my last lawn on Tuesday, I noticed that my back tire was getting a bit flat. Now the smart thing to do is to call into a gas station and pump it up, but nooooooo

On my way home, I say to myself, "I have the Technology." I will deal with it when I get home by using my wonderful emergency kit tire pump.

When I get home, I pull out the mini compressor, and away I go. I have pumped that tire up in no time, so feeling like a superhero, I head out the back to play ball with my dog.

The next morning, my tire was great, but my battery was flat. I have since found out that those small tire pumps also kill batteries. In fact, running your vehicle when you use one to pump up a tire is recommended. I had no idea.

Now I know, however, I have also learned something else amazing. I can charge my van battery without removing it from the housing. This is a great piece of news because, in a Nissan Caravan, the battery is in the worst possible place. Getting it out is a major pain.

I charged the battery (with my emergency kit charger) for ten minutes, and I was back on the road. All well that ends well

Or did it?

Halfway through Friday, my battery died again. Fortunately, when I looked up, my customer had noticed. He kindly opened up his garage so I could plug in my emergency kit extension cord and charge it again.

I will have to check the battery this weekend and may need to replace it.

The funny thing is that this time around if I hadn't had my wonderful emergency kit, I would have been better off. I would have just driven to the garage and pumped up that tire, and none of this would have happened.

Still, I did get this story, and I did learn a couple of things, so I guess it turned out alright.

Let me know if anything like this has ever happened to you. I would love to know.

Anyway, get out there, have fun, and mow lawns.

Stuart

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PS The Invoicing software that I talked about last week is going fantastic. I have gotten all my customers on it now, and I have set it up on autopilot. You can check the software out here​

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