This goes out to all those who have come up to me to say: I thought my day/week/life was going poorly until I read your Sunday column, and then my day/week/life doesn't seem so bad after all. Thank you.
It was one loose windshield wiper blade. How much trouble could it cause? I had time. I would drive back to Auburn from Utica, and then deal with it. No problem.
But on the drive back, just as it began to rain, the loose wiper suddenly swung violently across the windshield, veering right into the path of the oncoming (and, might I add, previously fine) driver's side wiper, spearing it like a fork into a fillet. There was blood and rubber everywhere, a windshield t-bone of snarled metal which left me with no working wipers in a rainstorm, but provided humor to others on the Thruway who watched me helplessly reach out my window while driving, my left arm a poor excuse for an intermittent wiper.
After I humbly made it back to Auburn, my left arm soaked, I was forced to buy two new wiper blades instead of one, but I am able to fix the passenger side wiper only because it required the simplest of mechanical procedures - tightening a loose bolt (my fix-it knowledge extends only as far as righty-tighty, lefty-loosey will take me). This auto repair success would have stunned my father, whose advice to me when I bought my first car was simple: Son, get a good job so you can afford either new cars which don't break down, or a mechanic, because you don't know your defroster from your distributor.
So I'm feeling pretty full of my mechanic self, and the next morning, as I head out to my fixed car, I discover that - during my self-congratulatory wiper euphoria the night before - I left the keys turned on in the ignition after testing the blades.
My car battery is dead. I fixed one problem, but caused another. And I need to get to work.
Normally, no problem. I will take my wife's car, but I now see her right rear tire is flat. So I have to find our air compressor, lug it over to her car, pump the tire up enough so that I can back the car down the driveway, onto our front lawn to get around the dead SUV (because Auburn neighborhood driveways are only 12 inches wide), leaving tire tracks as it goes.
I top her car on the lawn, attach the jumper cables, and finally my dead SUV starts. I slam down the hood, slowly pull her car off our lawn, then turn my SUV off to go in the house, which was a mistake. When I come back out five minutes later, the battery has apparently forgotten all about the charge it had just received. So I pull my wife's car back onto the lawn, trying to line it up in the same tire tracks I had just made, and we go through the same procedure, only this time, I leave it running while I go in to call Sears to see if I can bring my car in right now, because I need to go to work, but they can't get my car in until Thursday, which is two days away, but if I remove the battery myself and bring it in, they'll check it out.
And that means performing another successful auto procedure - the second in two days - which is stretching my limitations, but I give it a go, and manage to get half of the battery detached, but the negative rod is being negative, and not complying with lefty-loosey due to rusty-stucky, so I begin hitting it with my socket wrench, because hitting was how my dad used to fix things like the TV and my bad grades in social studies.
And just as it worked on me, it also works on this stubborn bolt, and I remove the battery and transport it to Sears in my wife's car, praying that her tire remains inflated enough to safely make it back to our house with a new battery. I have not yet made it in to work, my dress clothes are filthy with grease and dirt, my wife's tire is fading fast, and I have tire tracks on my front lawn.
How much trouble could one loose wiper blade cause?
How does your day/week/life look now?
Editor Mikel LeFort can be reached at 253-5311 ext. 230 or e-mail mikel.lefort@lee.net
But on the drive back, just as it began to rain, the loose wiper suddenly swung violently across the windshield, veering right into the path of the oncoming (and, might I add, previously fine) driver's side wiper, spearing it like a fork into a fillet. There was blood and rubber everywhere, a windshield t-bone of snarled metal which left me with no working wipers in a rainstorm, but provided humor to others on the Thruway who watched me helplessly reach out my window while driving, my left arm a poor excuse for an intermittent wiper.
After I humbly made it back to Auburn, my left arm soaked, I was forced to buy two new wiper blades instead of one, but I am able to fix the passenger side wiper only because it required the simplest of mechanical procedures - tightening a loose bolt (my fix-it knowledge extends only as far as righty-tighty, lefty-loosey will take me). This auto repair success would have stunned my father, whose advice to me when I bought my first car was simple: Son, get a good job so you can afford either new cars which don't break down, or a mechanic, because you don't know your defroster from your distributor.
So I'm feeling pretty full of my mechanic self, and the next morning, as I head out to my fixed car, I discover that - during my self-congratulatory wiper euphoria the night before - I left the keys turned on in the ignition after testing the blades.
My car battery is dead. I fixed one problem, but caused another. And I need to get to work.
Normally, no problem. I will take my wife's car, but I now see her right rear tire is flat. So I have to find our air compressor, lug it over to her car, pump the tire up enough so that I can back the car down the driveway, onto our front lawn to get around the dead SUV (because Auburn neighborhood driveways are only 12 inches wide), leaving tire tracks as it goes.
I top her car on the lawn, attach the jumper cables, and finally my dead SUV starts. I slam down the hood, slowly pull her car off our lawn, then turn my SUV off to go in the house, which was a mistake. When I come back out five minutes later, the battery has apparently forgotten all about the charge it had just received. So I pull my wife's car back onto the lawn, trying to line it up in the same tire tracks I had just made, and we go through the same procedure, only this time, I leave it running while I go in to call Sears to see if I can bring my car in right now, because I need to go to work, but they can't get my car in until Thursday, which is two days away, but if I remove the battery myself and bring it in, they'll check it out.
And that means performing another successful auto procedure - the second in two days - which is stretching my limitations, but I give it a go, and manage to get half of the battery detached, but the negative rod is being negative, and not complying with lefty-loosey due to rusty-stucky, so I begin hitting it with my socket wrench, because hitting was how my dad used to fix things like the TV and my bad grades in social studies.
And just as it worked on me, it also works on this stubborn bolt, and I remove the battery and transport it to Sears in my wife's car, praying that her tire remains inflated enough to safely make it back to our house with a new battery. I have not yet made it in to work, my dress clothes are filthy with grease and dirt, my wife's tire is fading fast, and I have tire tracks on my front lawn.
How much trouble could one loose wiper blade cause?
How does your day/week/life look now?
Editor Mikel LeFort can be reached at 253-5311 ext. 230 or e-mail mikel.lefort@lee.net