RESTARTING THE AUTO-START

If you believe in astrological influence, you might be aware that when Mercury is in retrograde phrase, things go wrong.  When planets are in retrograde, it appears that their regular orbits are actually moving in the opposite direction.  Mercury retrograde influences mechanical things, machinery, shopping, making major decisions, and signing contracts and other legal documents, and causes things to seem like they are going wrong or impeding progress, perhaps even moving backward.

I don't know that Mercury is retrograde when I start using my automatic car starter this fall, or, I should say, when I start NOT using my automatic car starter.  No matter what I do, I cannot get the stupid starter to work.  I'm not a dumb person, but apparently I am too stupid to press a couple of buttons. 

Finally, I happen upon a sequence that works.  First I auto-unlock the car, then I auto-lock it twice in quick succession, followed by two taps to the ignition key.  BINGO!  Car starts.

But ... I cannot get into the car.  The automatic door un-locker is not working.  I have to remove the dummy key from the automatic starter, use the dummy key to open the door by hand, then restart the car that now thinks I'm a car thief and shuts itself off. 

This routine goes on for a few weeks and, mostly, it works, but it's impractical, it's frustrating, and it's maddening.

This is when I happen to hear the radio snippet saying that Mercury is no longer retrograde. 

Since I didn't know it was retrograde to start with, I decide to give it the old cosmic karma try.  I head to the living room window, hold up my automatic starter, and do the sequence that is supposed to start the car (but so far this season has not): two clicks to the auto start button. 

I'll.  Be.  Damned.

Not only does this work, but the car doors unlock with the auto-key (I do not need to pull out the dummy key), and, this is the best part, the car doesn't shut itself off when I try to drive away.  To prove that I'm not insane and that astrological influences may actually have impact, I try this routine again the following morning, then again, and then a few days later, again. 

Every time now it works.  I'm not saying Mercury retrograde is the true problem, but I suppose it will work until the next time Mercury goes retrograde, March 5th to March 28th of 2019.