Running late for my Census job yesterday. Leap into the Saturn, turn the key—the sound of silence from the engine. Not even that grinding cough. Dismay sinks to my gut. No time to brood.  I grab the keys to G’s PT Cruiser and off I go. One of the guaranteed dismays of my life is a car on the blink. Several months ago, I dealt with a problem that drained my new battery flat in two hours.

This time, I put it out of my mind and moved on with my day. I was looking up a Census ID, when I knew, with a feeling of great calm, that the car’s battery was dead because I had left the key in the “ON” position instead of rotating it completely to OFF (and that is a story for another day.)

The fix was easy: jump the battery. Out come the battery cables, up go the hoods of both cars. Red cable then black cable attached to G’s PT Cruiser. Red cable attached to the battery terminal on my car. Then (thanks to You Tube videos) I ground the black cable on the engine block instead of attaching it to the negative battery terminal. Good thing I did that because sparks flew around but my battery was safe. The Saturn starts up and all is right with the world.

The point to the story, and there is a point, is that I achieved a successful outcome free from the two hours of mental frenzy which is my usual behavior when the car goes on the fritz.

I can “change my state” I works best when done early or the jukebox  of mind automatically starts playing that dismal “D3.”

Coda:

If it is true that a person with multiple personalities can have diabetes in one persona and be free of diabetes in another persona then there are interesting questions about the relationship of the mind and disease.