Q: Battery dead after car sat for one month

While I was on a month-long trip, my car sat in the garage without being started. Now my car will not start. The lights do turn on and makes two clicks, but nothing happens after that. After jump-starting it, I took it to an auto shop to have the battery recharged. The clerk told me that it was definitely dead all the way. When I picked it up later, I was told that the battery was good then. After getting home I connected the battery using positive first and then negative, which sparked a bit. Then when I tried to start the car, everything shut off completely and there was no power at all in the whole car. When I jiggled the battery a bit, there were some sparks and the power did come back on (the lights, dashboard, etc.). However when I tried to start the car it shut down all the way again. I jiggled the cable and doing that brought everything to life. Can you tell me how to fix this in a permanent way so I won’t keep having to go through these processes?