In Which Windy Dawn Plays Auto Mechanic

Remember how I am always so stubborn and insist on doing everything myself? Remember the incidents with the headlight? Or how I changed my own car battery? This is one of those stories.

This weekend I had to perform surgery on my car. My headlight went out and I decided to replace it myself to save some money. I have done this before, but it was on my previous car. I began by going to the auto parts store. I did not know the exact bulb I needed but felt confident in my skills of looking up the make and model of my car in the big thick book that's always in the headlight section of the store. To my dismay the book had been removed. I went to ask for help and found a smug kid who proceeded to look up the number I needed while he made sure to speak to me in a condescending manner.  

By the time I got home it was dark and I knew I wouldn't be able to see well enough to replace the bulb so I waited until the next day to operate. When the time came I opened the hood of my car and located the low beam bulb (yes I know the difference between the low beam and the high beam!). It was far inside in a place I could not possibly squeeze my hand into. Seriously, how do grown men with hands bigger than mine work on such small cars? I pulled out the drivers manual and it directed me the tire area of my car. It had me remove the inside fender so that I would be able to get to the headlight by going under the car and through the tire area. I hope that makes sense. It was a bit of a pain, but I did it. I pulled out the old bulb and replaced it with the new one only to find out it wouldn't quite click into place properly. I pulled the bulb out to examine it more closely and discovered they gave me the wrong bulb for my car!

I had to drive back to Redmond (luckily my mom let me take her van so I wouldn't have to assemble my car to drive it just to disassemble it again) and I got the correct bulb. As my luck would have it the new bulb cost me $1.10 more. Lovely. At least the gentlemen helping me this time was pleasant and polite. And rather handsome too. I then headed home and inserted the proper bulb into my car and voilà! Everything worked perfectly. I replaced the inside fender and I was done. Are you impressed? Be impressed.

PS, does anyone want to take an auto mechanics class with me?