Karma gives me a 2nd chance in the same week ...

... and the same snowstorm.

After the Thanksgiving Day gas incident on 99 I was looking forward to my chance to pay forward the push that got me past 212th to someone. I did not have to wait long, but it was a disaster.

The Sunday morning after the first snow in December I pulled out of the video store and went to go up hill and noticed a nice new smaller car stalled out half way up. It was clear that if I stopped I would likely need to turn around myself, but with the driver waving me down I decided to stop and see if I could help.

"Help me," the older lady seemed desperate. I pointed out to her that she merely needed to roll back a few car lengths to back into the video store and then turn down the hill and go around where it was plowed better.

She insisted that I do it. There is a big ditch there and although it was likely that I would easily be able to do it I was not about to wreck her nice car. I told her how to do it but she nearly came to tears. I told her I was sorry and that I would follow her around to make sure all went well but that I could not take responsibility for her car that way.

She indicated that all she needed to do was get to the top of this hill. I said she could just call or walk up and that someone could help her. She continued to insist, almost angrily, that I drive her car. I would not.

After a few minutes of shivering through this and realizing it would not end well I let her know that I needed to go. She got in her car - and much like I said and did myself - she backed in and turned down the hill and all was fine. I felt bad.

On that Tuesday afternoon I was in the B&N parking lot in Lynnwood when I was approached outside the store by a woman asking me for help in the parking lot. She asked if I knew how to jump start a vehicle. I went over to where she had the car and saw that she was one of four women working to perform a jump start. One had the manual out and one was hooking up the cables. The woman who flagged me down stood with a friend and commented how cliched this was that one man was being brought in.

It appeared that they actually had it under control. Although it did not start right away I told them to let it charge and that I would check on them in a few minutes. I went inside and came back out maybe 5 to 10 minutes later. The car still was not turning over.

A car not turning over at this point can mean many things and I said so, which did not cheer them up.

So ... I disconnected everything and reconnected the cables myself, making certain to really get a good connection. The car fired right up. Near as I could tell they had the cables right but just had not got the connections really solid.

They were an odd combination of happy and frustrated. I just told them that it was likely that the connections really needed to be better and that they had basically otherwise done it right. They thanked me, but were clearly a bit embarrassed by the speed at which the car started after I redid it.

At this point, I quietly took my leave.