Seeing the light
It’s not news to those who know me, but I’m probably one of the least handy people of my generation. Whether it’s from lack of confidence, effort or experience, I’m not exactly a skilled craftsman. Building, constructing, fixing, adjusting, tightening, loosening, drilling, sodering, and sawing aren’t my favorite verbs.
Not everyone can make a perfect model airplane, but I never really cared to try. But I have to try some tasks because it’s the right thing to do. I tried one the other night because I wanted to see if I could, but it also had to be done for safety reasons.
Yes, we had a burned out headlight on our car. I bought the bulb and even called my Honda service department to see if he could do it, but he said he’d have to charge about 35 dollars in labor. He added that even he, a licensed mechanic, has had trouble taking them out and replacing them.
Great.
But it had to be done and I had to try, so I followed the manual’s directions and got started. I even got my hands full of grease and dirt. I actually got things disassembled and was on the right track, but the bulb was so full of gunk that I thought it was hopeless. After about 35 minutes, I got even more discouraged: I had disassembled the wrong parts. How did I know? Because I tested the lights and the ones I was working on were fine.
I went back to the manual and realized I had been looking at directions for side lights, not the front ones. Now I was mad, but I had to march on. It took an hour of reading, re-reading and trying, but I finally got things going. All of a sudden it happened: I DID IT! I FIXED IT! THE HEADLIGHT WORKED AGAIN!
Now I had to reassemble the parts I screwed up, but I did that pretty easily. I couldn’t believe it: I FIXED SOMETHING! I felt like I had assembled the whole car myself. I guess my whole problem with trying things goes back to my youth when I began a lifetime of clumsiness and accidents. I became afraid of breaking parts or smashing something to pieces.
But now that I’m feeling like Mr. Goodwrench, anything’s possible. Just don’t ask me to do the passenger side, because that one’s supposed to be REALLY tough.
