Mostly Harmless

I am seriously waffling on buying one of the new trade-in program at PowerMax. That would allow me to quickly unload my current Mac (G3/350) for a bit less than eBay prices (with a lot less hassle) and buy a shiny new 733 or 867 MHz box.

I’ve sent my specs to PowerMax and I’m waiting for their quote. If it’s sufficiently lame I may just spend my “tax relief” on a G4/500 upgrade and call it a day.

If I recall correctly it was July 10th when I spent approximately $4 on some Professional Strength Rearview Mirror Adhesive and a Red Devil mini glass scraper.

I needed these things because, after spending $1,287.12 on my 90k mile maintenance (which normally wouldn’t include the highly expensive timing belt replacement and "while we’ve got it apart how about a new water pump"), and then spending $296.88 on the rear brakes (which the dealer said would cost about $550, hmmm…), the rearview mirror just decided to fall off — lest I get complacent, now that all my maintenance was up to date.

At this point, I have the glue. Now the instructions say to mark the glass on the outside, scrape off the old glue, clean the area with alcohol, apply the activator to the windshield, let dry for 2 minutes, apply the adhesive to the metal button (from the mirror), stick it to the windshield, hold firmly for one minute, allow to set for 15 minutes, and, finally, attach the mirror to the button.

This is all fine and dandy except for the fact that the aforementioned metal button on the mirror appears to require a special tool, should you wish to remove it, which I did.

Having read that reattaching these mirrors is sometimes a dicey affair I reckoned I should go by the book as much as possible and figure out how to remove the button, rather than be forced to hold the entire mirror assembly perfectly still for several minutes while the glue dried. (I’m betting the excitement of waiting for the glue to set would wan very quickly.)

In order to move the story along I’ll skip over all the places where you can’t find this tool… which is apparently everywhere. I suspect the Audi dealer may have one but they close at 1pm on Saturdays so screw ‘em.

Anywho, my quest for The Tool lead me to one of the local auto glass repair shops. I figured they’d have this mystical tool, which I could borrow, and then I’d beat that damn button — it was the principle of the thing.

Alas, it would appear that they (Harmon AutoGlass) don’t have the tool either, but they have a nice way around it…

I walked into the office, mirror in hand, and indicated I was trying to take the sucker apart. The receptionist told me to drive around to the service bay. Not wanting them to actually do the attaching, I walked around, mirror in hand. The tech looked at the mirror and told me to drive around. I drove around…

I watched the technician mark the window and scrape off the old glue. When it became apparent that he wasn’t going to remove the button from the mirror I wandered back to the waiting room. Not one minute later the tech came up front and told me it was done. The deuce you say!

So, to recap, I had spent a fair amount of time trying to remove this button, and another chunk of time looking for a tool to remove the button. In the end the technician just grabbed a glue dauber, gave the button a coat of glue and stuck it to the windshield. Elapsed time: approximately 3 minutes.

The kicker: apparently this didn’t cost anything. I say apparently because (a) the receptionist just sent me back to the service bay, (b) the tech stuck the mirror on and said "you’re done", (c) I drove off. Now, perhaps I was supposed to drive around front and ask "How much?", but it didn’t seem that way to me.

I’m unconcerned though, because I had previously decided that whichever glass company helped me remove that damn button would get my business whenever I needed any sort of auto glass repair. Abra lost because their auto glass installers are all mobile. Harmon won because they have an actual shop and they just up and fixed it (for free, I think).

I do have a couple of minor rock chips in my windshield which I will get fixed at Harmon because of their good customer service… but I won’t do it for at least another 18 days, because I’m trying to see what it’s like to go 30 days without spending any money on the car (not counting gas, of course).

Again, for the benefit of those not present, let me state that on Friday I predicted that I would spend "about $80 at Byerly’s" on the way home from work.

The results are in: I spent $79.75; which, I think you’ll agree, is "about $80."

Thank you.

It would sadden me that the best movie I’ve seen in about a month was Legally Blonde, if it wasn’t such a damn good picture.

It seems that somebody glossed over an important section of the pepper spray cheap.)