Mechanical Misunderstandings

New vehicle sagas – now two months old my new second-hand car absolutely flummoxed me when I couldn’t find a button to open the rear passenger windows (see Dumb, or Dumber). You’d think that I’d have developed a marginal knowledge about the features of my car by now. I’d thought I had.

The other day when I parked the car for the night I closed all the windows. Ziiim, up came the electric windows and sealed.  I locked the car and went inside.

Next morning, around 11am when the sun had had an opportunity to heat the car to oven status, I had to hurry to be on time somewhere so I opened the two front electric windows to get some air through and cool the interior.  The driver’s window opened, ziiim, just as it should but the passenger side wouldn’t budge.

I tried the  button in the up and the down position.  Nothing doing.  Exasperated I got out of the car and went round to the passenger side thinking that perhaps the electrics from my side of the car had failed but that the passenger side might still be working.  Nope, nothing doing.

Oh well, I told myself, the car is still under the three month warranty period from the dealer, so I sent them an email and then followed up the next day with a phonecall.  As we were discussing where I might take the car to have it repaired, and having discussed that there had been no hint of a problem, and that window was fine one day and not the next, the dealer asked if the master switch was turned off.

I remembered then, that in a fit of curiosity I had tried all the buttons on my door pad to figure out how to lock and unlock the doors without having to press my key twice. I didn’t know exactly what all the buttons did and the one with the X on it certainly didn’t look as though it referred to windows.

I rushed outside while the dealer waited, pressed that alien button with the X on it, and sure enough, the passenger window glided open, ziiim, just as it should.  I really worry about me sometimes, and I’m sure the dealer does.

©Theresa Sjoquist