A case of the brake light blues
Sometimes, it’s just not your week … or month. And sometimes you just have to laugh at silly stuff that happens.
A few weeks ago, a very nice man behind my car in a parking lot told me my brake light was burned out. I thanked him, as I had no way of knowing this from the driver’s seat.
Being a law- abiding, conscientious car owner, I looked in my car’s owner’s manual to find out what kind of bulb I needed. I couldn’t find any information there or on the internet, so I headed to the closest auto parts store.
Sometimes the employees at those stores will help customers replace bulbs, batteries and the like, so I asked the fellow behind the counter to look up which bulb I needed for my car’s make, model and year on his computer. He did and grabbed a two-pack of bulbs from the shelf. He said he couldn’t come outside to help me replace it because he was the only one working that day.
The next day, I watched an online video on how to go about replacing the bulb. I’m pretty handy, so it seemed very straightforward. It involved removing two bolts with some sort of wrench, which I found in the garage workshop. I popped out the bulb, opened the pack of replacement bulbs and only then noticed that they weren’t the same. The one I was removing had a round base and the ones the store sold me had a rectangular base.
I went back to the store with my receipt and incorrect bulbs in hand and another clerk proceeded to look up my year/make/model and told me that those were, in fact, the bulbs I needed.
“No, they don’t fit,” I told him. He insisted they were correct. I sighed and just asked for a refund. “We don’t do refunds on electrical, and you opened the package,” he said with no expression. I went back and forth with him for a few minutes, and then just gave up and left.
I called the Honda dealership and within a few minutes had the right bulb for a cost of $2.50. I should have gone there in the first place.
It turns out the auto parts clerk had sold me a turn signal bulb instead of a brake light bulb. Maybe he wasn’t the brightest bulb in the pack, but I wasn’t either for not consulting my trusty Honda folks in the first place.
I went home, popped the new brake light bulb in and went happily on my way to work with both brake lights functioning properly.
Next time, I’ll tell you about my recent windshield replacement fiasco. As I said, sometimes you really do have to laugh!
Kristin Emery can be reached at kristinemery1@yahoo.com.