So, full story.
I get one of my friends to come over and jump-start the van so I can get a new battery installed. On my way out, the Check Engine light comes on and the speedometer stops working, like I said before. I get to AutoZone and ask for a battery test, because I want to check that's what it is before I throw down more than I expected on a new battery.
They won't do the test, because it's raining.
Okay, so I'm going to go out to my van and try to start it. If it starts, I'll go somewhere else. Otherwise I'll just sit here until the rain stops.
Miraculously, the van starts on its own.
So I drive across town to a different place, go in, get the battery checked by the one person in the place who mumbles instead of yelling, meaning everyone possible is contributing to me not hearing what he's saying. Bad battery, that'll be a huge chunk of cash thank you, here's your new one, let me spend half an hour putting that in for you.
Off I go, electrical components to the van working, speedometer zeroed out.
I'm getting hungry, so I go to Waffle House. Fuck, my day's ruined already, why not.
While nobody expects class and top-tier service from a Waffle House, I get a look of undisguised contempt from the waitress as soon as I walk in the door. She waddles over to the high bar, takes my carryout order (chili-cheese omelet wheat toast hashbrowns all the way except gravy double waffle dark), walks over to another table, takes their orders, calls their orders, then calls my order.
While I wait for the cook to get around to my food and prepare it, I realize the four-year-old stomping and screaming around the restaurant is the waitress's son.
As the cook calls my order up, I go back up to the high bar. She scrapes the barely-done waffles (this is the opposite of a waffle dark btw) out of the iron, slaps them into a carryout box, and waddles back over with my ticket. She has to stop for a second to steel herself for actually taking something that I've touched, like with my hands.
My bag of food is sitting behind the bar. She waddles down to the other end of the bar, refills four drinks, picks up my bag, and hands it to me.
She sneers, "Sorry about the wait."
I take my food, go "Don't worry, you'll lose it", and leave. I don't need your goddamned surly antagonism.
