No car ... no cell ... how did people live in the 1970s?

I listen to a lot of Coast to Coast, so I know it's an indisputable, scientific fact (ha ha!) that some people have psychic energy that zaps batteries and whatnot. Again, it must be completely true; otherwise, why would they put it on the radio?

... And I'll just keep believing that until our reptilian overlords bring their mothership back to Earth.

Now that I've got the joking out of the way, I can get to actually explaining my annoying problem. The battery in my new Charleston cell wasn't holding a charge. (It was supposed to have a 212-hour standby time, and I got 13 hours.) So, after some wrangling with two extremely nice Verizon CSRs and one extremely rude supervisor, I packed up the whole box o' stuff they sent (USB connector, charger, 14 manuals) to take to the Verizon store.

Paul and I started driving that way, and ... here it comes ... the Vue started acting up. The RPM meter stopped working, the hybrid "Eco" function stopped, and -- perhaps worst of all -- traction control turned off. The last definitely worried me the most; I've heard stern warnings from my father-in-law about making sure my TC is always turned on. He turned his off in his beautiful blue Sky so he could drive like a complete maniac (look, you'd have to know him to understand), and totaled his car. So, in my mind, no TC = imminent danger.

So we turned around from heading toward the Verizon store and drove to Saturn to drop off the car. Mom and Dad carted us to lunch and Verizon, so the good news is I have a working Charleston phone; the bad news is I've got a loaner car. Boo. Hopefully, I'll know the diagnosis on my car today. The Saturn shop was waiting until someone who is knowledgeable about hybrids came back to work. (The wait sucks, but I'd rather a hybrid specialist look at it anyway.)

And all this because my psychic power is sucking energy from batteries and light bulbs and ... human souls ... heck, I dunno. :-)

P.S. No offense to people who remember the 1970s and were not amused by my subject line. I'm just pushing your old-people buttons.