Several years ago my wife and I were driving cross country to visit family. We were young and didn't have kids yet so I had started driving and when it got late we switched so we could drive through the night. I was asleep in the passenger seat and woke up enough to ask how my wife was doing. She was fine so I asked how we were looking on gas, "Oops!" (Well she didn't actually say oops but it's more family friendly that what she did say) She didn't remember seeing the gas light come on and the needle was on Empty. She said she would stop at the next exit.
As I was settling back down I saw the exit pass by, "Weren't you going to stop?" I asked. "Oops!" There was another exit a few miles down the highway so she promised to stop there. However, a few minutes later I saw another exit zip by. "Oops!" So now I'm sitting up and wide awake to make sure that she actually gets off at the next exit, because if we run out of gas at 2:00 in the morning I know that she's not the one who's going to volunteer for the walk to the nearest gas station. Fortunately we make it to the next exit and pull into a 24 hour gas station.
I notice a car parked off at the edge of the lot. It's hood is open and there is a young man, a bit younger than me, looking at the engine like a kid who hasn't studied for a test and isn't even sure what class it's for. I decide to walk over and ask if he needs help and see that there is a very pregnant, very worried woman in the passenger seat and a young child asleep in a car seat in the back. As I approach the guy turns to me and blurts out "I don't know anything about cars!" He then holds up his hands and I see he has a small roll of electrical tape and a cheap pair of pliers, he says "I just bought these inside but I'm not sure what to do with them."
I introduced myself and told the guy I knew a lot about cars. It turns out that the battery cable had come loose, it was still attached firmly to the battery but the other end was just hanging loose. My guess is that the nut which holds the cable in place had come loose and fallen off somewhere on the highway.
At that point I went into MacGyver mode, I grabbed the toolbox out of my trunk and created a makeshift nut out of a washer, a socket from my wrench box and his electrical tape. During this time I explained what I was doing and why. I told him that this was very much a band-aid and that he needed to get his car to a real mechanic ASAP. He promised to take the car in later that morning and thanked me profusely. He offered to pay for the parts I used and tried handing me $20. I told him those parts will cost me about 75 cents to replace so not to worry about it.
