Our sump pump stopped working. The fellow my husband contacted said it would be about $75 to fix. Of course, the final bill was $179 because it needed new parts. Whatever.

We can't have it not working because we live in "tornado alley" and heaven knows what kind of weather we may be in for. Today and tomorrow look awful with a chance of flooding, massive winds, hail the size of baseballs and tornadoes. I told my husband that we should build a bar in the basement to see us through the season. He thought I was joking. I'm not.

We've had several near misses with tornadoes over the past few years. I'm in mid-Michigan. We were lucky, in my neighborhood, to avoid any floods at Easter time.

I was actually born right after a massive tornado hit Flint Michigan. It was in the top 10 deadliest with around 116 killed. My poor Dad couldn't be there when I was born because they had him working triage in the hospital parking lot.

You win the thread. Those of us who live in tornado zones are not the faint of heart. Stay safe!

You can try jumping it with you car. They’re both 12v systems. If it starts it’s your battery. If the engine is turning over but not catching it’s not the battery. If you move a lever to start the the blades then you only need the battery to start it. If you pull a (usually yellow) knob then you need a battery. So perhaps just stop it close to a vehicle and it can be started by jumping it

I wasn't sure if I could use my car battery - and now I know!!

First a flat tire, then I drive 90 miles to drs in Albuquerque so I figure I might go to Apple and get a new phone as my phone battery is just about dead The girl transfers all my info but is very distracted- half way home I realize I can’t call out on my new phone as she didn’t transfer my server -get home and figure I will do it on internet but internet is down. So now I’m home with no cell service and no internet. Next day drive 120 miles round trip to AT&T store and on the way home suddenly my cars engine, gas, brake lights go on and my cars abruptly stops at a desert rural road. Takes AAA almost 2 hrs to come and then suddenly all the lights go off and it runs again. So Friday it was towed to local car repair and guess he hasn’t gotten to work on it today. Now I’m going to call internet people again as my service is on and off.

Here is a maddening AI story in the middle of this. AT&T said if I answered 5 personal questions online they could connect me - one of the questions was which of these 5 counties have you lived in. So they gave me five counties I never lived in - I said none so I failed the test as AI or whoever prepared this test got my counties wrong. the other questions were about my daughters birthday etc. and a phone number I had 12 yrs ago. Can’t make this sh*t up.

In the meantime, my washing machine is acting up and I’m walking badly waiting for hip surgery.