I remember an old joke from when I was a kid back when dinosaurs roamed the Earth. It went something like, "How many . . . (insert your ethnic group of choice here) . . . does it take to screw in a light bulb?" There were various answers to this and as I recall each answer was funnier than the last.
I AM NOT LAUGHING . . .
This past week was rough. Trying to recover, clean and restore the house and my life to "normal" after our weeks worth of house guests wore me down. The Man was cranky, I was cranky and the world decided to play games with our heads. It was one of those weeks where NOTHING went right. Probably because we were tired things that normally might not have bothered us got to be major issues. It was a terrible battle for me to keep from slapping someone up-side his head. I did a LOT of talking to God this past week and thankfully God was listening because He always directed my attention to something soothing. Like right now . . . I'm sitting outside under the big maple tree enjoying a cool breeze that is helping me to cool down in more ways than one.
But back to our riddle/joke. This weeks version of the joke is, "How many times does it take The Man to check a fuse before he admits there is a problem?"
Back in November of last year The Man bought a used Honda Odyssey. It was not a good move and I had a very strong feeling that this was NOT the car to buy but having learned my lessons well I kept my mouth shut. He is a grown man and should be capable of making his own decisions. Usually this is the case but in this particular instance he, (we) were basically given the full on push as only a car salesman can do. The Man went through with the purchase and was basically happy with the car. There was an issue early on where the dealership really took advantage of The Man but once that was all sorted out he was good to go. The mini van is perfect for his needs of getting oxygen concentrators and tanks in and out of the car quite easily. The sliding side doors make travel so much simpler for him, (us).
Fast forward to just before we left Florida to come to MI. I noticed the transmission was occasionally slipping. I gathered my courage to mention this to The Man and he actually said he had noticed the same thing. OK Did he do anything about it? No, of course not. But forget the transmission, we will save that problem for a day when we are 2,000 miles from home and in the middle of a monsoon or something. Heaven forbid !
Then somewhere in the middle of the summer we started to have a problem with the cigarette lighter in the front of the car. Normally one would say, "who cares?" but because The Man is on oxygen we have to travel with an oxygen concentrator AND a spare concentrator AND a large oxygen tank AND a small oxygen tank. (Breathing being a key issue here) we need power for the concentrators. The oxygen tanks are good for moving to and from the car but they only contain enough oxygen for a couple of hours at most. Our main source of oxygen while in the car is the electric concentrator that plugs into the cigarette lighter. So if the cigarette lighter is not working The Man is not breathing. Minor detail !
Anyway . . . the first time the concentrator started beeping alerting us to the fact that it was no longer receiving electricity The Man, after cursing for a few seconds, wiggled the wires and resolved the problem. Then it happened again and again and again. The Man cursed, wiggled wires, pulled the power cord out and pushed it back in and cursed some more. "It must be the cord" said The Man. Two weeks later we had a new cord and that worked fine for about a month. Then this past week it all went of hell in a hand basket. The cigarette lighter died completely. The man of course blamed the wire. Tried a second wire and that didn't work either. (The light bulb is slowly being lit in The Man's brain.). The Man reads the owners manual for the car and finds there is a second lighter outlet in the back of the car. (Let me take a moment here to remind you that The Man does not get out to do or check any of this. I am the idiot climbing in and out of the car.). So, we plug the cord into the back lighter and it does not work. Maybe it IS the cord. We plug in a second cord and it DOES work. For all of about 5 minutes and then that one dies.
Now I am not an electrician but something tells me there IS a problem. The car is shorting out the power boxes on the cords? I don't know but I do know there is something wrong and since we are leaving Michigan in less than TWO weeks for a 1,600 mile drive to Florida. I doubt very much The Man can hold his breath for that long. Something needs to be done.
The Man decides, (and this is where the old joke comes in) the problem is a FUSE. A reasonable deduction. And so we begin The Great Fuse Search of 2022. First we have to find the little buggers. Turns out a 2019 Honda odyssey had THREE fuse boxes. This fact was established when we made our first stop at an auto supply store. (Did you know these stores don't just sell stuff? They will come out to your car and run tests on the car!). I was sent into the shop to get help. A lovely young man came out, found two fuse boxes, pulled out the fuse for the cigarette lighter and said it looked fine. End of that stop. We return home so that The Man can have me go under the hood and check for myself. I refused to get down on the ground to wiggle into the drivers side of the car to access fuse box # 2 but I did get to search out and find fuse box # 3 in the way back of the car. (WE) I opened that, switched fuses and still no luck. Does The Man accept the fact that it is NOT a fuse issue. NO Next day we drive to another auto supply store and after a half hour and THREE workers later we now have establishes that all the fuses are just fine !!! And yet The Man continues to believe the problem is caused by a fuse. Next stop is to the Toyota dealer in town, (The Honda dealer is an hour and a half away). Toyota service department is wonderful. They listen, look and test ALL the fuses. They take the wires we have for the concentrator out to their own cars n the parking lot and plug them in to see if the wires are working. THEY ARE NOT. They test the cigarette lighters and determine that the back on is working but the front on is bad. But since we have now blown out both of our power cords that does us no good.
It is here that I suggest we call Honda and make an appointment. Grumble grumble grumble. I also suggest that perhaps The Man needs to order a new power cord and NOT plug it into the car until we get the car looked at. Grumble grumble grumble.
I have no idea where this is all going. We have a car appointment at Honda for next week. New power cord for the concentrator is ordered and I am drinking Jack Daniels Honey by the pint.
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