When you change your cars headlight, take my advice and don't be a dumbass

Last November the passenger side headlight of my car burnt out. I called the dealership where I get the majority of my maintenance done to get a quote to have it replaced.

$95!

Do you hear that? That's the sound of my jaw dropping. "How much is the light bulb?" I asked. "Twenty Dollars." Says the money hungry mechanic. "That's ok, I'll figure it out on my own!"

And I did! I only spent the better part of 3 hours performing a task that a trained professional could have done in 3 minutes - but I consoled myself with the fact that 1. I'm a chic. 2. I'm hot. 3. I've never even opened the hood of my car before, much less the wheel panel. So I gave myself a break. I'm a hot chic who just replaced the damn light bulb on my car! (In heeled boots no less, but I wasn't going to mention that part.) (Until I did) (Shut up)

Since I had the driver side headlight replaced sometime in April or May when I took my car in for regular maintenance and it hasn’t burnt out yet, imagine my surprise when I discovered the bulb in the passenger side headlight (that I just replaced last November) was burnt out! I smiled slightly and thought “I got this!”

I got home from work yesterday, grabbed my tool box, and went to work. Within 5 minutes, the underside of the wheel was exposed, the innards displayed, and the offending bulb sitting in my hand. As I was driving to O’Reilly Auto Parts store it occurred to me that I hadn’t taken a picture of my awesomeness to share with all of Facebook and Twitter lands. I had all ready washed my hands of all the car dust and holding a bulb with clean hands just doesn’t do the awesomeness any justice. As I thought further, I realized that I was going to exchange the bulb, since it was under warrenty – which required returning the box (so the store could return the offending bulb) which meant I had to change the bulb in the parking lot of the store. I had a whole scenario of how this picture would look to convey the full effect of the awesome and

1. The parking lot of the auto parts store did not fulfill the requirements of said awesome and
2. It would probably look weird and concern people if I were taking pictures of a bulb in the parking lot.

I had the sads. So I came up with a brilliant plan! I exchanged the bulb, installed the new bulb in the parking lot, and returned the box. Yay, that headlight can see now! By the time I got home, I had convinced myself that I needed to test the theory that the bulb being burnt out was what triggered the check engine light coming on. In order to do that, I needed to remove the bulb. Since the bulb was going to be removed anyway (for a perfectly legitimate reason) I could take the perfectly awesome picture! Yay! We all win!

I removed the bulb, tested the check engine light theory (I was probably right, but the light didn’t come back on), and set up the picture. Tool box in back, rub my hand on the wheel panel to get it nice and black, make sure the sexy sandal gets in there, test the lighting… wait, lighting is too bright. Need to squat down and use the car’s shade. Squat down, point camera at hand – everything is positioned correctly and…

*Drops the bulb and breaks the tip clean off*

And that my friends, is what happens when you try to show off. And by ”you” I mean “me”.

I got the picture and it’s as full of the awesome that I had imagined. I took the new offending bulb to Auto Zone and bought a new one cause I was too embarrassed to take it back to O’Reilly’s. I replaced it in the parking lot, went home and watched The Big Bang Theory.