Musings at Altitude

When my wife got home today, she came into the house and told me that something was wrong with the van.  The internal lights in the rear of the van stayed on even after shutting the van off, and when you opened the door, even without the key in the ignition, the fast paced tone came on telling you the lights were on.  I immediately recognized my chance to do a manly thing and find out what the problem was with the car, so I quickly went outside, surveyed the situation, saw it was exactly as she had said, professed my utter confusion, and then went around the car and slammed every door just in case one of the doors wasn’t sealing right and thus leaving the sensor open and thus the lights on.  When that didn’t work, I pulled out the owner’s manual and then I did what every man does – opened the hood (called it the trunk first, but she knew what I meant when I asked her to open it).  I needed the owner’s manual because I didn’t know where the fuse box was – must have been a fuse if slamming the doors didn’t work.  When I opened the fuse box (I was really looking like I knew what the heck I was doing at this point), I scrutinized the fuse box lid looking for the fuse which controlled the interior lights, but lo and behold, no such fuse existed. 

After looking a bit harder, I shrugged my shoulders and went inside to call the Dodge dealer to ask them if they had any idea what it might be.  When I got on the phone with the service manager, he asked, “did you check the interior light switch” to which I said, “yep, it’s not that” and he then suggested it must be a problem with a door latch not registering as closed – exactly what I thought it might be when I went around and slammed each of the doors shut.  I was feeling very proud at that point.  Since the lights stayed on, we were worried about the battery so I asked if he could look at it immediately and he said not till the morning.  I asked if I could go ahead and drop it off because I was worried about the battery, and he said, “no problem, we’ll just jump it in the morning if the battery is dead.”  I quickly got on the road to take the van to the dealer over-night drop off entrance, and when I got there, I once again flipped switches to make sure it wasn’t something stupid and then I’d really look like a fool.  As I was flipping every switch on both sides of the steering wheel, I moved one spool wheel which I had no idea what it did and sure enough the lights went out.  I moved it back and the lights came on.  I immediately realized that the service manager must have meant that switch when he first asked me did I check the interior light switch which I was certainly sure that I had. 

When I called my wife, the first question she asked was “didn’t the service manager ask you that” and I said “of course not” because I really didn’t want to admit that I was that stupid.  But the more I think about it, the more I feel a sense of great relief that I didn’t leave the van and hear one of two things tomorrow morning when the service guy was done laughing at me:

(1) “are you really that stupid?”

(2) “we needed to replace all of the door sensors and it costs $600”

I have a great sense of “whew” right now realizing how lucky I am that others didn’t get the chance to see how really stupid I am.  Of course, when my wife reads this and realizes I said a little white lie about what the dealer asked to prevent her from laughing hysterically, then she’ll give me that “you’re such an idiot” look that I always deserve and probably laugh hysterically anyway. 

But, I did slam all the doors and look under the hood though…that counts for something doesn’t it?