Out of my element at Lordco

To begin this post, let me say that I am a reasonably competent and intelligent person.  I have been successful at most things I have tried.  When I have found skills or tasks difficult, I have generally put in the time and effort to figure out how to do them passably well.  Some of those things were quite difficult.  Most of my colleagues in my career have considered me to be good at the things I do.

That said, there are some ENORMOUS gaps in my skills.  If the zombie apocalypse occurred, I doubt I would be anyone's first pick to join their community of survival refugees.  I might be in demand if people wanted a good conversationalist or a good storyteller.  After all, I am well read and can talk about everything from literature to government and from current ideas in science to innovative agricultural techniques for our climate changing world.   I'm not completely helpless either.  I love solo camping and can take care of myself reasonably well out in the wilderness.

But ask me to repair your water pump and I won't really be able to help you.  Change the oil on your car?  Sorry.  Catch your fish, gut it and clean it?  Give me a manual and I might be able to figure it out, but otherwise we would all go hungry.

So it was with great trepidation that I walked into Lordco, an auto parts store in Osoyoos last week. To be honest, even the name scared the hell out of me.  LORDco?  The name has nothing to do with religion (just a combination of the two founders' last names), but it just conjures up this incredibly intimidating image of hardcore Christians quizzing me about things like fuel injectors and venial sins. Talk about being out of one's element.  

We were driving back from the Okanagan and had just left when we realised that the windshield wiper blade was broken.  It was a drizzling, grey day and we would be driving through some areas that could get snow, so we stopped in Osoyoos to pick up a wiper blade.  At first I was insistent that I could just drive back with one (since the broken blade was on the passenger side), but humiliation was trumped by my desire to get us back home safely.  As soon as I parked, I braced myself for a humbling experience.

My nemesis

For someone like me, walking into an auto parts store is akin to taking a trip to another country.  If there were passport checks, I am pretty sure they wouldn't let me in.  I know more or less what everything is, but I don't know what to do with any of it.  I said (out loud), "Brace yourself for a humiliating experience."  I took a quick pass through the store and, not finding the wiper blades, went up to the cash register.  There was an older woman wearing a witch's hat, but she was busy so a young woman called us over.  Damn.

Just to establish the situation clearly, I said, "I am probably your most ignorant customer, but I need wiper blades."  She looked at me completely stone faced and then asked, "What size?"  Exactly what I had been dreading.

"Umm, I don't know.  Do they go by make and model of the car or something?"

"No."

Okay, now I was stuck and kind of just stood there going 'hmmm' with a sheepish smile on my face. For some reason she suddenly softened and took us over to the wiper blades and helped me choose a pair.  Maybe she remembered that time in elementary school when she had trouble figuring out how to solve a math problem, and the teacher helped her through it...whatever it was, she went from incredulous at my stupidity to quite helpful.  I had the broken blade so we could quickly determine the size, but the connection was now the problem.  I had no idea.  I meekly asked if she could take a look at the car, but she said she wasn't really allowed to do that (which I can understand).  She seemed to be taking pity on my stupidity and led us to the cash register saying that if they didn't work, we could return them.  We walked out with me mumbling, "God, I hope that was the hardest part."

It wasn't.

After I paid I moved the car to the centre of the parking lot where no one from the store could hope to see me fiddling around with the wipers.  I like to try and fail in private.  In fact, I don't mind trying and failing repeatedly as long as I don't have an audience for it.  The package had no written directions.  Instead it was the diagrams intended I suppose to be 'universal'.  The problem with these 'universal' directions is that there is no 'if this happens, do this' kind of thing.  Universal directions basically suck.  For everyone in the universe.

Anyway, the directions showed the blade and a little connector that came in a small box inside the main packaging.  In the diagrams, it showed (or at least it seemed to) the connector fitting inside the wiper blade and then the hook of the windshield wiper arm (the part actually permanently attached to the car that moves back and forth) fitting into that connector.  I fiddled and fiddled and came to the conclusion that the hook from the wiper arm did not fit into the connector.  It was too wide.

This meant another humiliating trip into the store.  If we hadn't had a 5 hour drive ahead of us, I probably would have spent at least an hour in the lot trying to figure it out on my own.  As it was, I walked back in wiper blades in hand.  The same young woman was waiting for us.  I started with, "Your most incompetent customer of the day is back."  This self-deprecating but true opener was meant to soften her up and make her sympathetic, but I got absolutely no reaction.  I explained how the blades didn't fit.  In my mind, she was looking at me vaguely sympathetically but thinking, 'What kind of idiot can't change wiper blades?'

She was willing to take the blades back but didn't seem to really know what to do with me.  "Let me get my manager.  Hold on a second."

He came out a moment later and asked me to describe the problem.  He asked me if the 'j-hook' didn't just slip into the wiper.  In my defence, this is an important illustrative moment.  I knew instinctively what the j-hook was (so I'm not totally incompetent - only partly so); I just could not get the j-hook into the connector.  Thanks to the gods of Lordco, he offered to take a look (thank you!!!) and came out with me.

As you might guess from the situation - especially if you have ever installed a wiper blade - it took him all of three seconds.  What was the great mystery that had eluded me for fifteen full minutes?  I didn't need the connector.  The 'universal' directions had misled me.  In the case of our car, the blade attached directly to the wiper arm.  Vaguely humiliated but very appreciative, I thanked the manager profusely and the woman from the register.  Though she could have massaged my ego a bit more, she was helpful.

As it happened, there was no rain or snow for the rest of the drive.  In fact, we ended up driving through a gorgeous sun-filled fall day.  I saved that second wiper blade change until today.  I had some time and, most importantly, some privacy and went outside to examine the car.  I took a look at the recently replaced blade, examined how it fit, went over to the driver side and quickly removed the old blade.  A few minutes of wiggling and another glance at the new blade and how it fit, and it was done.  No problems.

So you see, I may not be the kind of person you need in a zombie apocalypse, but I'm not a complete idiot.