Being independent can be incredibly fulfilling.

It can also be fucking exhausting sometimes.

My car battery died, so I ordered a new one. I carefully checked the amperage, dimensions, and compatibility with my car model. It arrived, I removed the old battery (which was no small feat, and I was ridiculously proud of myself when I finally managed it) and then discovered that the terminals on the new battery were reversed and it wouldn't work.

So now I have to return it. Which means carrying a 15 kg battery to the post office.

Then I have to wait for the correct one to arrive.

And after that, I get to figure out why two of my tyres are flat (no problem, I have a spare tyre and ordered a charger/air blower thingy, hopefully it will work).

I am perfectly capable of taking care of my own shit.

I'm just getting a little tired of it. But lesson learned: buy the exact same model of whatever you need to replace if you can.

/rant

That sucks.

I'm working on some plumbing and I've come home with the wrong part more often than I want to admit. By the time I'm home there is no way I'm going back out, so it gets put aside until I remember again/have the energy to deal with it.

You didn't ask for advice, so putting this behind a spoiler so you can ignore it easily.

All the garage around are on vacation currently and it started as a pretty straight forward job, and the battery would needed to be ordered anyway since my car is 30 years old and the model not common here. I thought I could manage before my garage was open again, and now that I've started, I will finish what I can, since I've invested effort and time.

I'm exasperated today because I got very deflated when I thought I was pretty close to finish, but I will enjoy the process once it is resolved, however that will be.

Hey, thanks for the spoiler on the unsolicited advice, it is so thoughtfull and I appreciate both, the spoiler and the advice. Thank you :)

I left that Era of " all by myself " and now I play dump even when I know what should be done. I make my life easy and less hustle and more space for pleasure to be served. Ridiculously, this my behavior bring pleasure to opposite sex 😅 only if they knew where I truly stand.
Sometimes I have to interrupt their help, because can't see how not knowledgeable they do the work and this is only time when I feel uncomfortable, because my true intentions are seem🙈

Yeah, I thought so too and I kept on going thinking I would just turn it 180 but the terminals are offset to one of the border, not centered, so if I turn it 180°, the terminals would be closer to the windshield. Positive cable reaches it fine but not the negative one, the cable is too short.

And yes, that was an amateur mistake, I am an amateur :), one less that I'll do now though.

I appreciate your advice, there's probably something I haven't thought off.

Good luck! I understand the deflated feeling. I spent like two hours gathering parts yesterday based on the apparent availability of a different part. Turns out it was misleadingly named and not what I needed. I could have cried in the store lol.

The cables almost never have any slack, and as OP said, the terminals are offset to an edge of the battery, even sometimes located on the front face of the battery. Car batteries suck.

A lot easier than checking three dimensions and maximum current once you know about it, that's for sure.

You knew the rules and still mansplained in the women's only community?

I've fallen quite far down the degoogling / selfhosted tech rabbit hole.

Benefits are cool, but it is nothing but this.

I feel your pain, sister.

I have no advice, only hugs.

cough cough cough

They should have their own instance that isn't federated until Lemmy adds the ability to not post to all. Until then, expect anyone and everyone to reply.

Out of respect, I will not be replying to anyone. I said what I said. Reddit had the same problem, but they had an option for subreddits to not post to /all. Until Lemmy includes this option, expect anyone to reply or move to a defederated instance in the interim. I would wager most people who read a post on all do not read the rules of the community or the community they are replying to.

Just had to, didn't you?

Better idea, you should log off and delete your devices.

You could’ve left gracefully, y’know. It’s ok to be wrong.

Women are allowed to exist on the internet without cloistering ourselves.

It’s site-wide rules that everyone adhere to community specific rules.

If you don't curate your feed that's on you.

I feel like I’m deliberately stepping on a landmine here as I’m not a woman

You knew what you were doing.

Roadside assistance is worth every penny if you can swing it.

A lot of insurance policies include it now

I honestly wouldn't have even thought about that. Thank you for sharing so now I'll know if I ever need it. I'm sending you all the ehugs.

I don’t have enough information, but assuming your battery is compatible, can you just rotate it so that the terminals line up again?

I would normally agree, but AAA in the US has been fully enshittified.

Any details?

My life has taken such a weird path on dependence. I studied engineering in college, nominally as a cis straight guy, wasn't out yet. But life has taken some wild turns. Transitioned. Watched my orientation orientation do a total 180 in the process. Went from mostly liking girls with a passing interest in guys to being exclusively interested in men. Ended up dating, falling for, and marrying a cis het guy. I've worked an engineering career, but an unconventional one and chaotic one. I've spent time in and out of academia, sometimes teaching, sometimes working in industry. Had a PhD program that didn't work out, and I've dealt with a lot of job instability relating to ADHD/ASD.

I never thought I would be in this situation, but it just kind of happened. When I was in undergrad and repressing hard, if you had asked me, I would have told you that my life plan was to start a career, find a wife, and have a family together. Somehow I ended up becoming essentially a stay-at-home wife completely financially dependent on my husband. This coming school year I'll be doing a combination of tutoring, substitute teaching, and my various volunteer work. I keep myself plenty busy, but I'll be lucky if I make a third of what he makes this year. And realistically, with all the career instability I've had, I would probably be on the street or doing sex worth without him.

It's a path I never thought I would go down. Even post-transition I was very independent. We got married in 2018. We entered the marriage with equal net worth. I had even worked my butt off and actually paid off a mortgage on the modest townhome I owned before we wed. But shortly after we got married I started that doomed PhD program, and things just grew from there. I never planned on ending up dependent on my husband, but that's just the way it happened.

I knew a lot would change when I transitioned genders. But I never thought I would find myself in my late 30s, bouncing back and forth in a career between stay-at-home wife and intermittent pink collar work. But you fall in love who you fall in love with, and medical issues are medical issues. We're doing fine. Me working is more about us meeting our savings and retirement goals than keeping a roof over our heads. And our wealth has only grown since we got married, substantially so. Our marriage is stable, we're still madly in love with each other after 8 years of marriage. And we have enough life insurance that I would be OK if something happened to him. But it's still just a lot of complex emotions. And it's not because of anything he's done. I couldn't ask for a better partner. He doesn't control me, not want me to work, or anything like that. I've just had a lot of career difficulties that have produced this outcome. I just never thought I would end up so completely dependent on a man.

How so?

That's when you find out the terminals are closer to one side of the battery than the other and the cables are 5cm too short

How odd. I've never seen or heard of that before.

See, it's probably one of those things that people "just know" if they were raised around cars, and wouldn't ever think of if they weren't. I was raised very much in the spirit of equality, but was never invited around for car stuff (granted, my dad died when I was 13 and I was quite wild before that so maybe it wasn't really very safe). All I know about cars is stuff my husband taught me + some YouTube videos but there's still so much I don't know and maybe wouldn't think to ask. That's why my daughters learned how to top up wipers liquid as soon as they were tall enough to reach the intake and it goes on from there 😂

I didn’t check the rules

I don’t make a habit of it

If you come up on my feed that’s on you

I feel like I’m deliberately stepping on a landmine here as I’m not a woman

Three of these things belong together. Three of these things are kind of the same. But one of these things just doesn't belong here: now it's time to play the game.

Which of these statements doesn't belong? Go for it, Sparky! I'm sure you'll be able to figure out it! There's enough clues!

And yet you're still here. Still commenting. Still posting against the rules you now definitely know about.

Fucking Hell, what does it take to get through to you complete and utter bags of dicks!?

Original:

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Rotated:

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The box is symmetrical across a 180. The things on it aren't necessarily.

AAA no longer has its own fleet of tow trucks. Instead they use outside contractors whom they squeeze to the point that they're often working at under minimum wage. This, needless to say, impacts quality. There are persistent reports of predatory upselling tactics, like being called for a simple jump start and having the contractors try to sell a brand new battery instead for a LOT more money. They're playing the Canada Post game, too, of pairing price increases with decreased service. For example basic membership gives you, say, a 5 mile tow (I'm not sure what the current rates/services are; this dates back a couple of years). If you're on the highway and need a 20-mile tow, you're on the hook for private towing for 15 more miles. That is a marked downturn from previous "tow to nearest" plans. There's also persistent reports of them going viciously bureaucratic on reimbursements to the point that people just give up on getting reimbursed despite that reimbursement being within their plan's service levels.

Back when I was in college, it was a once per year fee. Everyone got the same level of service. Now there are tiers of service depending on how much you're willing to pay, and it's gone from having to pay once a year, to monthly if you want their best level of support.

And your fragile snowflake ego couldn't take that so you just had to put the women in their place. By going into their place.

A real piece of work you are.

Take responsibility for your actions. They didn’t force you to respond.

Again, it is expected that everyone adhere to community specific rules. Would you have thrown a fit like this if you posted against the rules in a politics comm?

I don’t think you would.

I think y’all have an issue with women gathering on their own without men. It bothers you that there’s a space you’re not allowed to go as a man, doesn’t it?

Why are you ruled by your ego? Why do you have to get the last word in a place that is for women only? Does it bother you that much to have a place where you are unwanted as a man?

To be clear, I don't want you to answer those questions here.

You came back right here.

We are protecting our space from rude men who insist they know better than we do.