(photo W Hayes)
Yesterday I tasked myself with fixing the illumination in My Rebecca’s car’s dashboard. I can put up with inconveniences like that personally but it was driving her crazy, no speedometer, no gauges. So yea, I tackled it and it took me all day and fifteen dollars.
Lucky for me there is UTube and I did consult a number of gearhead geniuses. One guy, Ken maybe, that was probably a nice guy really but I wanted to strangle him after listening to his 8 minute demo 9 times. But he did give me the idea that I didn’t need the special Ford tools to do this. That is all I needed to hear because two butter knives, two 16 penny nails and two crochet hooks (different sizes) later I had the “cluster” out and fixed and back in.
Cluster is what they call the unit with all the gauges and electrical gizmos that sits in front of the driver. It is sort of the nerve center, yea brain surgery baby! So the idea of Ken’s demo was that you could take out your cluster and send it in to his company so he could fix it or sell you a new one. Of course the name of his outfit was Cluster Fix which totally cracked me up, like that is what the year 2020 needs a Cluster Fix!
So, here I am with my head in a 2 cubic foot area of the wife’s car. That is all I am thinking about for the whole day. That is my reality, my cluster fix. And Pilgrim Farmer John our CHBC comes along to report on this catastrophe in Iowa, caused by straight line winds. Damage of crops and buildings to the extent of 10 million acres. I just did the math and that amounts to a strip across the entire state of Iowa sixty miles wide! Fortunately John’s farm and property of his children were not in that zone. But that is huge and terrible and on par with all the other stuff this year. They need a Cluster Fix for sure.
I was just struck by the difference in scale. How sometimes we are tiny and sometimes thinking big. Sometimes we are sick and we have a hard time getting outside our own bodies and minds for instance. Or sometimes we gaze on the stars or a newborn and are struck by the potential of it all.
hang tough loves, Felipé.
So true. BTW, I spent several hours taking things apart and trying to decipher the manual (translated from Korean) of my Hyundai to fix the illumination on the dashboard, only to finally realize it was a switch I had to toggle.
“Cluster fix” is a good one. I’ll remember that today when I need a laugh.
The machine and the (wo)man chuckles,
Henriette Anne
Henriette ~ these cars and trucks these days are very complicated. Finding that switch could be a challenge. And then there is the fuse panel which needs to be checked before taking out screws. But I was through all that and these old Taurus’ have this problem of intermittent and then no lights on the dash. We were at this stage so had to give it the old college try to give it a fix. Yea, but Cluster Fix! Felipé.x