What Not to Do When Jump Starting a Car

If you need someone to talk your ear off, I’m your girl, but if you need someone to jump-start a car, I recommend calling someone else. I had to jump-start my car for the very first time, and it resulted in a smoky, smelly, and hot mess.

I made a rookie mistake on Friday when I left a light on in the interior. On Monday morning, the car was dead as a doornail. That afternoon, with jumper cables in hand, my fiancé and I attempted to bring my little Mazda back to life.

It seemed pretty simple. Put the red clamp on the dead battery and the other red clamp on the good battery of Ross’s car and repeat the process for the black clamps. But when Ross went to start his car, his car whined and nothing else.

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Shortly after, a terrible smell came from the front of the car. We hopped out to find out what was happening, and smoke was flowing out of the piece to which the black lever was attached to.

This is where I started to get nervous. With my luck, I was about to blow up both of our cars and my neighbor’s as well.

Thank goodness for Google. We huddled around my iPhone and watched a quick tutorial. It turns out we put the cords in the wrong spots. Another rookie mistake.

When it was all said and done, I was forced to get a new battery. Luckily, the solution wasn’t too expensive, but my car still smells like burning plastic, and I pray I don’t have to jump anything else in the near future.