Thursday, July 31, 2014

Red-Necked Door Handles and Patience

You know how trying to see the humor in things helps you get through a minor problems? A couple of weeks ago, my little putt-putt car which has always been faithful, starting every morning, cold, heat, rain or snow, for twelve years now, began showing it's age with a fan belt that has been squealing. I mean squealing to the point of embarrassment while sitting in the bank teller line, on the parking lot where I work and at stop lights. My wonderfully capable husband took a look at it, but because it's a foreign make, did not have the foreign tools to get in there to take it apart. So it was off to the mechanics.  He got the belts changed, but not before telling me there was other work that eventually needs to be done which of course entails more foreign parts and tools and can't be done at home.  I decided to wait on that for now...ca-ching, ca-ching

     But I guess my little guy got used to the treatment he received at the garage because not even two weeks later, putt-putt decided to roll the driver side window down and not let it go back up again. My husband took the door panel off, checked the fuses, but it is, of course, either the motor or the switch. ca-ching...ca-ching...

    Off to the mechanic again who had to order the parts and sent the car back to us so we could use the car until the part came in.  The only problem was he didn't send back the door handle. So my creative husband said, "You just pull on that little wire and it pops it open."
 
      For some reason it would work every time he did it.  But no matter how hard I tried I could not pull the wire to get the door open.  So he got me the pliers.  Now, it's only supposed to take two days for the part to come in so I thought, no big deal, I can do without the door handle.  Getting out of my car now requires a tool...hence, my red necked door handle. Sigh...

    Now for the laughing part...I'm not really laughing 'cause it's a real pain to be in a hot car, grabbing up your phone, purse and purchases and forgetting you don't have a door handle to get out.  It means putting everything down I just collected and searching for the pliers which never stay in the little cup I put them in near the gear shift. They fall onto the floor and in the midst of driving around town, slide across the floorboard, sometimes under my seat.  Oh and when I get in the garage any time after 3:00 pm, it too dark for me to SEE the little wire that has to be pulled with the pliers.  Sigh...

  It's been two days now and I haven't heard from the mechanic about the part yet.   I don't want to complain about a really minor hardship...but...I'm trying, not so successfully to make this a lesson in patience. Lord knows, I need plenty of those lessons...

  Thank you, Lord, for the little lessons in life that poke and bite us like gnats and mosquitoes and door handles that don't work.  It's in those lessons we build up to greater patience with things like that guy next to me at the light whose squealing belts REALLY  need to be changed!

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