Chaos Theory…..

When a butterfly flaps its wings in South East Asia and there is an earthquake in Puerto Vallarta — you get the drift.

Last night, we had our own example of this….

Just as we had settled down to watch the traditional Friday night Northampton McCaughey movie, the car alarm on our now 12-year-old Kia Sportage went off for no particular reason.

This was strange for three reasons;

1. I don’t think we had ever heard the car’s alarm — so apologies to the neighbours, whom we privately berated for not attending to their stupid car alarm that must have been going off for five minutes.

B. It was the night before going off on holiday to Japan — so we were expecting passport issues, travel cancellations, or similar problems — and this wasn’t one of those.

4. Not to curse things - but whilst it is admittedly low mileage, it has been an ultra reliable car thus far - for 12 years - which honestly is unheard of.

Anyway - back to the story, (note to self - it seemed like a good movie, must take time to watch at a future point)….

The alarm went off. I reset it. I headed out to check the windows, doors and boot were all closed. All checked out.

I did a bit of research on the internet - as you do. There were 4 things that google said it could be;

1. An open window, door not shut properly etc

2. Key fob needing new batteries

3. Car battery on its way out

4. Catastrophic wiring issue - mega £££

I walked through each….

1. Done

2. One for later should it happen again

3. Found the number for RAC, and swapped the car that we were taking to the airport in the morning - Sorry Jane.

4. Put firmly to the back of my mind.

The alarm went off again, and the movie was paused — maybe for the fifth time. Action 1 hadn’t worked.

Further Googling suggested spiders, butterflies, and even wind (the weather type).

I then started action 2 on my plan. Because of faulty batteries, re-testing, etc., I had to swap out the battery maybe six or seven times 👐. As a result, I’d learned a new skill: I can change a Kia key fob battery like a pro.

I found myself sitting in the car, thinking. I’d forgotten that it didn’t start unless you depressed the clutch fully — which only made me ponder some more…

Then, in the darkness, I caught sight of something on the inside of the windscreen. It was a moth. Not a huge one, but not that small either — let’s call him/her/they average for a moth.

In a couple of seconds, I’d put together a theory that it was the moth, looking at the moonlight through the front windscreen, whilst perched on the alarm sensor, that was the issue.

I dispatched the moth.

Problem solved — full night of sleep.

So, not exactly chaos theory — but it was our own little version.