We bought our current car, a Honda CRV, in 2019, at the same dealership and, in a completely unplanned coincidence, exactly twenty years after we bought our first Honda CRV, which ran great for almost two decades until it suddenly died in the driveway. I’m not trying to shill for Honda here but I have a feeling if we’d just replaced the fuel pump, the only part that had a sudden expiration, it might have run for another twenty years.
Instead we decided to just get a new one, in spite of the slightly different design making it a little smaller on the inside.
Not all parts are equally durable, though, and I’m pretty sure we haven’t replaced the wiper blades on the new one since we bought it. They were starting to disintegrate and, having reached the point where they wouldn’t wipe away water so much as annoy it, I decided to get new wiper blades.
I had vague memories of replacing them on our previous car, and I remembered it involved a lot of snapping and swearing in the driveway. As I was struggling with the front blades I asked my neighbor, “Do you have any experience with wiper blades?”
And that’s when I remembered I’d asked him the same question when I’d previously replaced them, and he gave me the same answer: “Only when it’s raining.”
Even though we’d both checked carefully the guy at the auto parts store sold me the wrong size blade for the rear window so I had to go back and replace it, and when I did I asked if he could help me.
“Oh sure,” he said, “I’ll try and remember how to do it. The only thing I really know is those rear wiper blades are a pain to replace.”
I think I had the same conversation with a guy at an auto parts store the last time. That’s when I realized that companies can get away with such terrible, annoying, hard-to-work-with designs for wiper blades because as soon as we replace them we forget how difficult it is until the next time.
Yeah, I had the same memory problem after delivering Child #1. By the time I delivered Child #2, my memory was restored.
I imagine kids do a real number on your memory. I’ve never had any–memory or kids, though, so I can’t really speak to that.
This morning I have to do a dreaded task at work which I do very infrequently, so I feel wiped before I start it. Thanks for helping me out with this oh-so-timely post, Chris.
The nature of work seems to be that we all have to face dreaded tasks but I’m glad I could provide a little restorative.