Day 136: New Accomplishments

I had a headlight out.  I'm not entirely sure when it happened, but there was a night a few weeks ago when I realized the reflection of my car was lacking one headlight.

In efforts to not get a ticket, I drove with my brights on... Not entirely sure what kind of ticket the brights would amount to, but I figured it was better than one headlight out.

I picked up a bulb yesterday and read my manual a little.  Decided to tackle the change today... and upon opening the hood and unscrewing the part where the headlight is, I was lost.

No idea what to do, I posted on Facebook asking for people that had experience with changing headlights.  I really didn't think it could be that hard, so I felt particularly defeated and helpless while asking for help. One response said I should send him a message and he could give some instruction.

I think he gave me some little advice like, "pop the hood and unscrew the part where the headlight is and change the bulb."  Something I'd already done, but I figured I was just missing something.  I read through the manual a bit more to see some diagrams and eventually found myself in a conversation with my brother while making my attempts.

Lucky for me, my brother has the same kind of car and knew exactly what I was seeing so as I was doing it, he was giving advice, I was staring at the pictures in the manual and trying to follow all of the instructions.

1) Open hood
2) Unscrew plastic thing where headlight is
3) Pick the right color of wire
4) Disarm bomb
...wait.. no...
4) Unplug wire
5) Unhook ridiculous strong latch thing that doesn't want to unhook
6) Remove light
7) Replace light and guess on which direction it should face. Try not to touch it while you're doing it but still replace it.
8) Rehook ridiculously strong latch thing that also doesn't want to hook
9) Screw around with this for a while
10) Replug wire
11) Try to put that plastic thing back over everything even if it doesn't really want to go back on... 
12) Give up and start car just to make sure the right bulb was replaced
13) Feel proud the right bulb was replaced
14) Try to put the plastic thing back on more... 
15) Slam it on... 
16) Shut hood
17) Feel accomplished

....and boy, do I feel accomplished.  And handy and independent. I do have a weird curiosity about my car but I never feel confident to really navigate what is going on for it. So today was just a little triumphant all around. I fixed the fact I had a headlight out - and I did it alone.  (With help from afar.)