A Mommy Story

Last week we noticed that Aaron’s brake lights had gone out on his car. We realized that driving with them out was, well, illegal. But it seemed silly to pay someone to put a lightbulb in the car. Coming from a family of all women (feminists, too!), most of whom are well-educated in not only cooking and gardening but also car and home repair, I figured this would be a simple fix. After all, they had done this type of thing dozens of times! I looked in the owner’s manual, found the light bulb part number, and bought the bulbs for him to replace them.

Aaron wasn’t sure about it, but I reminded his that he can change a tire, and, well, this is far easier than changing a tire. He braves the cold to make an attempt at this. Fifteen minutes later, he comes back in and asks me to check and see if they’re working. I check. “Well, dear, there’s no brake light, still. But now there’s no turn signal either.” He erupts into cursing (his normal response when he’s angry and Cordy isn’t around).

My mom came up the next day and took a look at it. Having replaced headlights, tail lights, etc., she hoped to find what he did wrong. She couldn’t. Aaron then told us that we should have taken it to Wal-Mart to begin with, since they fix car lights.

OK, fine. We take it to Wal-Mart last night. They take a look at it and tell him it’s not the bulbs. Well, hell. So now we have to take it to the dealer.

We then take his car to the dealer today. Turns out it was originally just the bulbs, but Aaron managed to screw up the wiring and broke the socket when he tried to replace them. Damn. He was right – we should have just taken it to a professional. But it was a friggin’ lightbulb! How can you screw up a lightbulb?

$189 later, I have learned my lesson. I will never again assume that my husband can do minor repairs on a car to save us money. It will, in fact, end up costing us even more if I urge him to try it. Keeping this in mind, I think I will refrain from asking him to do any home repairs as well.