So yesterday I gave my Jetta the day off, in the humid and warm confines of the Delta Prince Edward underground parking lot.

Around supper time I retrieved the car and returning it to the frigid temperatures of the Charlottetown night. I drove home, parked for a few minutes, then drove across the Hillsborough River to Stratford for a couple of hours, then headed back home.

I noticed, while heading across the bridge the first time, an unusual high-pitched whine from the engine, and also noticed that my headlights didn’t appear as bright as they usually do. On the way back home I pulled into the Riverside Irving to clear my windows and when I tried to start the car back up it refused to start, showing classic signs of a dead battery.

I rang up brother Johnny and he heroically hopped in his car and came to my rescue; by the time he arrived I’d managed to start the Jetta back up, but it continued to act strangely.

And so I decided the best course of action was to hobble over to Dave’s Service Centre – you remember Dave’s, right? – and found, to my surprise and delight, that Dave himself was still in the shop. We had a chat and he deduced that it was likely an alternator failure at the root of the issue: the car had been running on battery alone, which was why it refused to start and why the lights were dim.

So I left the car with Dave, and am waiting to hear back this morning.

Moral of the story? Never give your car the day off.