Jon is up pre 7:30, with coffee, no less. Today, he is going to get a thousand things done. NOt only is he going to get a million errands done, but he has noticed that his brake lights are out, and he is going to fix them. Foolishly, he figures it’s a fuse. He tears apart his house for his service manual, and can’t find it. Rather than travel to his storage space in Quincy (1.5 hours round trip), he checks every fuse…only to find it’s not a fuse. He inspects a tail light bulb. It looks OK, but for a buck, he figures he’ll buy a bulb. He drives to Weymouth (40+ minutes round trip). He gets a bulb. He goes home…to find that the original bulb was fine.

He starts tearing apart the house again for his service manual. It’s not to be found. He figures it’s at his storage space in Quincy. He drives to the storage space. He tears the place apart looking for his service manual, and hears a thunk in the process. He has his keys in hand, so he dismisses it and climbs out. No manual. He once again heads home.

He then tears apart the house for the service manual a third time. After an hour, he locates it at the absolute bottom of a box full of useless crap. He feels dumb. He reads that he should test the brake switch for continuity. He grabs his trusty digital multimeter (ta-dah!) and turns it on. It squeals. It dies. The batteries are no more. They are obscure batteries, too. He heads to Brooks, Stop & Shop, CVS, and eventually Staples. None have the batteries, but he buys some that are pretty close. He buys some paper that will allow him to make a T-shirt on his computer. His will say, “Why Me?” He heads home.

When he is nearly home, he looks at the car clock, which tells him it’s 3 PM. It’s 11. After a minute he realizes that he pulled the clock fuse. He goes to check his cell phone for the correct time…

Not there. The thunk he heard finally connected. As he was one foot on a pile of boxes, and one foot on a crate high above his piles of crap when he heard the thunk, he figured that his cell phone should be about dead-center-bottom of the entire 6 foot tall pile of shit that he calls his stuff.

He gets home, weeps gently, and sacrifices one of the more unfamiliar neighbors to the god of cars. He will get the phone later, when he is sane.

He puts the fresh, new, 2 hour journeyman’s batteries in the multimeter, and it says:

bleat

…and dies. Then it comes on. Then it dies. Then it comes on and stays on long enough to check the continuity of a screwdriver. It’s continuous. He adds more O.J. It’s more continuous.

He goes to his car and tears apart the dashboard, only to find that Japanese hands must be much, much smaller than his, because even with the dashboard apart, he can’t unhitch the switch, nevermind test it. He might be able to do it with some pliers, but the last time he used this as a child labor persuasion tactic, the brat nearly got him thrown in the clink. Then he figures even if it is broken, he isn’t exactly sure how to replace it, nor are any Acura dealerships’ parts departments open. It is now 4:45 PM.

Jon is broken. He eats an apple, a nutrageous, some cookies, and makes some tea. Rather than drive around with no brake lighs like he had been doing all day, he figures he’ll just sit back, relax…

…and unwrap that new copy of GRAND THEFT AUTO:VICE CITY that he accidentally purchased on Friday.

(All’s well that ends well.)

Posted in Cars