Sunday afternoon

Jill and I made plans for Sunday. We would wake up and take care of the kids while trying to maintain our household. You know, dishes and laundry and crap.
Then in the afternoon, Mom and MMH were going to come and play with the kids and Jill and I were going to go horseback riding, then paint some more fence boards then go for another ride and come home.
Everything went according to plan until we got into the car to go to the farm and torture, er, ride the horses.
We got into the car and when I went to turn the key in the ignition, something under the hood exploded.
Not fireball blow off the top of the car exploded but a really loud BOOM that got our attention RIGHT NOW.
I looked at Jill. “Did you hear that?” she asked me.
“Um… I have to change my shorts.” I replied.
So we got out and popped the hood on the car. As I was doing that I noticed a rapidly expanding puddle under the car. Jill noticed a strong smell of acid.
With the hood up I saw that VW puts an enclosure made of plastic all around the battery so that if the battery explodes it won’t spatter all over the engine compartment. That little plastic enclosure is now in 37 pieces in a variety of shapes and sizes… and the sides of my battery are burst open with acid leaking all over.
I summed up the situation with a slightly technical diagnosis.
“Holy SHIT! It blowed UP!”
So I called some people who know more about VW than I do and asked them what I should do? I was prepared for directions like, call the fire department, evacuate the house, freak out, vote straight party ticket, anything radical.
Instead I was told; hose it all down really good, (that is strong acid) pull out the battery, buy another one and put it in. Then get another battery enclosure from VW.
Well. It was as easy as he made it sound but it still took about four hours.
Most of that time was finding a replacement battery.
The first place I called had a battery so I sent Jill for it. Her trip sounds something like what happens when you send either a stoner or someone with ADD to run an errand.
She went to AutoStore, GardenCenter, IceCream Shop, Grocer (just for milk)(ended up w/7 bags of food), then home.
In the end, the battery got changed and no one got hurt. We didn’t go riding, though.