Well, I think I may have jinxed my car's electrics.
The battery light came on yesterday when I was driving somewhere, but it started up fine when I went to leave and I made it home with no problems. My dad figured out it was an alternator problem, so we set up an appointment for Tuesday at the local VW dealership, knowing that in the meantime I'd have to get it jump-started anytime I wanted to go anywhere. OK, fine, whatever. But on the way to my mom's house this morning (a journey of 25-30 miles), the electrics started going because the battery was running out of charge. ABS light on, airbag light on, speedometer, tachometer, odometer not working, engine sounding less than healthy at idle, low speeds, and when I tried to go faster than ... well, damned if I know because the speedometer wasn't working. I made it to my mom's house (barely, by the sound of it) and called my dad and we had to change the appointment to today. Par-tay. I think the journey over there (preceded by a jump start with the cables left on for about 10 mins to get some charge in the battery) may have been the most tense 25 minutes of my life. I felt like I was racing the inevitable.