I'll try to keep this brief:

Wife comes in the house, says car won't start.  I say impossible.  I
go out to car and confirm her observation...not even a click from the
starter motor.

I pop the engine hood and look at the built in hydrometer.  Red Zoned.
WTF?

I put a charger on it, Error Code F02.  IOW, this thing is so dead,
even a charger can't charge it.

Now this is important:
I put my jump kit on the battery, and the headlights come on full
bright.  I look at the dash, and the headlight switch is ON.  I of
course, turn the switch to OFF.  She had left the headlights on in the
garage overnight.

The jump kit provided enough polarity to the battery to allow the
charger to Run.  That's one important thing to note.  Without the jump
kit, there would have been no way to even charge this thing.

After charger said FULL some many hours later, I took a hydrometer
reading of each cell.  They were still Red Zoned ( specific gravity
too low, IOW too much water, too little sulphuric acid, since the
plates had the sulpher ).  BUT...it started right up.  So I threw the
jump kit in the back seat and went looking to buy a new battery.

IIRC, BXT-36R IIRC.  So I headed to the newly opened Auto Zone.
Figured I would get fresh stuff there, and wanted the Duralast.

Well they should have labled it the Last Dura, because the date code
on the thing was 2/05 !!!

I put that one on the floor, told the manager it was not *nice* to
sell a customer a battery that's been on the shelf for TWO YEARS! and
pulled the next and last one behind it.  That one was USED as
evidenced by the striations on the B+ terminal from having been in a
vehicle, and the missing battery cap !!!

Two for Two, AUTOZONE STRIKES OUT!

Left the store, went to Wal Mart.  Entered make of vehicle into their
customer computer.  First computer had a fubar display.  Second one
gave me the right equivalent to the Motorcraft part.  So I pull the
battery, and it's terminals are BARE ( pulled B+ cap ) and the
terminals were sulfided !!!  What is this sh.t?  Isn't it Against the
Law to sell USED as NEW?  

Finallly I found one with a mfgr. date code of 9/06 and a shipping
date of 10/06.  I bought it, took it home, gave it a little distilled
water, charged it, everything is fine.

3 sh.t batteries in a row at 2 well known stores.  Pay attention and
be careful.  Never buy a battery that shows signs of having been used
( missing plastic cover on B+ terminal ) and is older than 6 months (
3 months is my own maximum ).

Lg