A productive day

After the debacle that was Wednesday, in which Sammy and I spent most of the day in our pajamas trying to keep sane while someone *ahem, Sammy* threw tantrum after tantrum, I resolved that Thursday was going to be different and thankfully it was.  I had a lot of errands to catch up on, like going to the post office to mail some woefully belated Christmas gifts, depositing some checks, and picking up some much needed supplies, like milk and garbage bags.

As we drove around, crossing things off of the to-do list, I noticed that my turn signal was doing some rather interesting syncopation, which usually means that one of the bulbs was on it's way out.  I pulled into a parking lot, put on the brake and flicked the turn signal on, and then ran around the car to figure out which bulb was the culprit.  I'm sure that the whole process looked pretty comical to anyone who happened to be watching.

I ascertained that it was the rear indicator, so Sammy and I added a stop to Pep Boys to our list before heading home for some lunch.  We were greeted by a friendly employee who showed us where the replacement bulbs were located; he then proceeded to look up the right bulb on the handy little computer system (I remember when you had to look up the bulb type in a booklet the size of phone book--wow, that must date me).  He located the bulbs and as he was handing them to me, he said "Now you won't be afraid to use this system the next time you come in!"  I shot him a look and said, "Um, I've done this before, you know.  But thanks for your help."  Ugh.

I pulled out my car's manual and set about removing the tail light assembly after I had put Sammy down for his afternoon nap.  This was the first time I had to change a bulb in my current car, so I ran into some issues trying to remove all of the screws, but after a few choice swear words and a liberal application of elbow grease, I soon had the old bulb out and the new bulb was working like a charm.  Here's to a great weekend, everyone!