I am a computer guy, through and through. I've never pretended to be that über-handy man that can fix a dishwasher and frame a small house. But I try.
I try because that's my nature. If you show me something once I am normally mechanically sound enough to be able to replicate it in the future, even months or years down the line.
Rewind to about a year ago when one of my windshield wipers was flopping helplessly around like that Soy Bomb guy that jumped on stage when Bob Dylan was playing during the Grammys. It turned out to be due to trying to use the wipers when there was ice on them. The wipers on my car can't detect there is too much pressure on them and rather than giving up you would maybe say they are the Rudy of windshield wipers and just try and try and try and keep at it…until the arm snaps. And they did. I worked with the Niff's stepdad Mike to replace it at the wonderful cost of $97, and although it wasn't easy it wasn't rocket science.
Fast forward to yesterday during the commute and the wiper started being dumb. Same exact behavior as last year. Because of the weather I could barely see driving, and I was furious by the time I dropped Niff off at work, who was happy to basically open the door and roll out of the car to get away from me at that point. I called Saturn, and picked up another arm mechanism for only $80. Wow, a steal. So we have dinner at Uno's (very good actually) and around 6pm in the freezing cold I get my 1000 random tools I've collected over the years, thanks to my Dad, and went to work. I had a pretty good idea of what I was doing, and at one point I got really stuck, which just so happened to be right before I would remove that mechanism. I took a close look at it and realized it was not in fact broken at all. I tried to pull that off anyway and at least diagnose what the issue was.
At that point, it was about 9pm. I was inside getting another tool and just missed Mike coming into the house. I put everything back together the way it was, and tested the first wiper: worked fine. Tested the second wiper, still didn't work right…until I tightened the nut.
And then it worked. It worked perfectly. I was happy it worked and I could return the mechanism, until I realized that playing around outside in subzero temperatures isn't something people normally pay to do. In order to return the part I have to say goodbye to 15% of the part for a "restocking fee". I wonder if they will waive that if I offer to go behind the counter and put it back on the shelf…
Anyway, live and learn, right? I guess I should have checked it to see if that was the culprit and it only would have cost me about 17 seconds to tighten the damn nut, not to mention save me from near frostbite, constant nose running, and generally feeling like the guy's on Deadliest Catch.
