TIFU by convincing my new neighbors I'm a pedophile by charging my car battery.

A few weeks ago I moved from Chicago to Springfield, Illinois. State capital, nice little town, horrible mass transit, compared to Chicago.

I had some work done on my minivan before leaving Chicago, but it also started to be a little harder to start than normal. I even posted to Reddit for advice: https://www.reddit.com/r/MechanicAdvice/comments/1k58lj8/

A couple days ago it was suddenly really hard to start. I ran my battery down getting it going, just to get a very rough idle and an idiot light. I made an appointment with a local shop, but the soonest they can get me in is Tuesday.

I want to make sure I can get it started Tuesday, so I'm trying to charge the battery. I'm hoping, if I can get it started, as long as I keep one foot on the gas at all times it'll make it the mile to the shop. Unfortunately, it's not parked somewhere I can run an extension cable for a battery charger. I've read multiple stories on here about Karens complaining when you park in front of their house, so I made sure to park in front of an empty lot.

Luckily, I have a nice 140 watt USB power bank. While I have not been able to find a USB C cable that uses PPS to charge a car battery (please let me know if you know of one), I do have a 28 volt USB trigger cable, a 30 amp Victron Orion-TR DC to DC charger, and a cigarette lighter cable. The electrical engineers among us may already see the problem. I, unfortunately, did not.

Yesterday, I sat down in the driver's seat, took off my belt, and opened my pants. The opening is hidden under my shirt, so most people would never see it. I have a bit of a dad bod, so sitting for long periods with a belt and my jeans buttoned gets uncomfortable. I'm also bald, have a long beard, and resting grouch face. My most recent ex called me their Viking. I also get lumberjack a lot, and ZZ top. Are you familiar with Goliath syndrome?

The sun was shining in my window, so I put up a piece of cardboard to keep it off me. It comes up about chest high. I have a couple cardboard boxes on my passenger seat, about the same height. I put the power bank on my passenger seat between me and them. I opened both windows a bit to get a breeze.

I connected up my makeshift car battery charger and pulled up VictronConnect, the app to monitor/manage the Victron charger, with my phone in my lap. I was surprised to see that while the power bank initially ran up over a hundred watts, it quickly settled down to 80 watts, and VictronConnect told me the charger was only receiving 14.3 volts.

After looking through the app, and doing some math, I eventually figured out this meant it was pulling around 5.6 amps off the power bank. Unfortunately, the USB spec only allows 5 amps maximum. It looks like my power bank doesn't actually limit the output amps, and if you try to draw too much, the voltage drops significantly. Turns out this also makes USB cables heat up significantly.

Apparently a 30 amp DC to DC charger doesn't just support 30 amps, it actually tries to draw 30 amps right up until it hits its lower voltage limit. Unplugging the USB cable so it can cool down, cuts power to the Victron so I no longer have access to its settings.

Around this time a couple nice gentlemen walked up to the passenger side of my car and asked if I was having car trouble. I told them I am, I'm thinking it might be the fuel filter, and I have an appointment at the mechanic on Tuesday to have it fixed. They asked if I needed anything and I said not unless you know how to change a fuel filter.

They walked off and I plugged the USB cable back in and continued looking through the settings of VictronConnect on my phone, trying to find some way to limit the Victron's input to 5 amps, regularly looking over at the power bank, checking its output wattage, unplugging the USB cable every time it got too hot, and plugging it back in once it was cool enough. I have Asperger's syndrome. I sometimes get fixated on fixing things and lose situational awareness. I also regularly have vocal tics that come out like humming or grunting.

Maybe a half hour later later one of the gentlemen returns and says "I hate to be the bearer of bad news but you need to leave before something bad happens." I'm like wtf "it's a public street." He replies "We can see you looking at our children, you need to go before something bad happens" then walks off.

Thinking about it, I vaguely remember the sound of children playing in that field I'm parked next to while I've been working on charging the battery. There is a telephone pole about 5 inches off of my passenger mirror. Moving my head to look around it I can see a garage on the other side of the field with a bunch of parents and children huddled around the front of it.

I finally realized that, while he did not communicate it very well, what the last guy meant was: having a big scary guy sit in his car repeatedly looking in the direction of their children playing in a field, then down into his lap, with cardboard blocking other people's view of his lap, his arms moving around, while regularly grunting, was making the parents uncomfortable. No idea if they saw me open my pants when I sat down.

I buttoned my pants, exited the vehicle, installed my belt, and quickly left. My car is stuck here until Tuesday. I still need to charge the battery. I'll have to pay more attention and leave next time children start playing in the field.

TL;DR: If you are a big scary man, make sure you don't sit in your car, next to a field with children playing in it, with your pants open, while looking between your lap and your passenger seat, with cardboard blocking other people's view of your lap, with your arms moving around, while grunting.

ETA: It seems a lot of people are focusing on my pants. Three weeks ago I bought two new pairs of jeans with a 38-in waist. Even with a belt I have trouble keeping them up while standing. Yet they are too tight while sitting down. I don't know what to do about that. I appreciate people's input. It looks like suspenders or stretch pants are the only real solutions, short of unbuttoning them when I sit down.