365个英语简短小故事- 60. Darn Battery

The Buick wouldn’t start. Considering it was 15 years old, this shouldn’t have been a surprise. But, the battery wasn’t that old. It was a Die Hard, sold by Sears. Gerard had bought it six years ago, but it was a 100-month battery. It was fully¹ guaranteed for the first 12 months, and then pro-rated after that.

Gerard called Sears. The service rep told him he would probably get “$10 to $40” credit toward a new battery. Gerard wondered how there could be such a $30 range, but he didn’t bother to ask. If the problem was electrical, he asked the service rep, what would Sears fix? The rep said Sears only replaced alternators and starters; if the electrical problem involved something else, Gerard would have to take it to the dealer².

Gerard went out to pull the battery out of his car so he could recharge it overnight. Then he could hook the battery up the next day and use a meter to see if the electrical system was working properly. He opened the hood³. He looked. He looked some more. Where was the battery?! Had someone stolen it?

He opened the manual. The manual said nothing about the location of the battery. He called up his friend Bryan. Bryan told him that he was looking in the wrong place; the battery was under the rear seat. Gerard scoffed⁴. “Nobody puts a battery under the rear seat—except Volkswagen,” he told Bryan.

“Well, it’s got to be somewhere if it’s not under the hood,” Bryan replied. Gerard went back out to the Buick and lifted up the rear seat. He found a few coins, some real old chewing gum, a paperback⁵ novel, and a watch battery—but no car battery.

Enough was enough. Gerard called AAA’s emergency road service. Before the tow truck driver towed the Buick to Sears, Gerard asked him if he knew where the battery was. “Oh, sure,” he said. “It’s under the hood, but you’d never know it because it’s completely hidden by the big, white plastic windshield washer reservoir.”

 

1 fully   

adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地

参考例句：

• The doctor asked me to breathe in,then to breathe out fully.医生让我先吸气，然后全部呼出。
• They soon became fully integrated into the local community.他们很快就完全融入了当地人的圈子。

2 dealer   

n.商人，贩子

参考例句：

• The dealer spent hours bargaining for the painting.那个商人为购买那幅画花了几个小时讨价还价。
• The dealer reduced the price for cash down.这家商店对付现金的人减价优惠。

3 hood   

n.头巾，兜帽，覆盖；v.罩上，以头巾覆盖

参考例句：

• She is wearing a red cloak with a hood.她穿着一件红色带兜帽的披风。
• The car hood was dented in.汽车的发动机罩已凹了进去。

4 scoffed   

嘲笑，嘲弄( scoff的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• He scoffed at our amateurish attempts. 他对我们不在行的尝试嗤之以鼻。
• A hundred years ago people scoffed at the idea. 一百年前人们曾嘲笑过这种想法。

5 paperback   

n.平装本，简装本

参考例句：

• A paperback edition is now available at bookshops.平装本现在在书店可以买到。
• Many books that are out of print are reissued in paperback form.许多绝版的书籍又以平装本形式重新出现。