Well, welcome to the customer-service-free world.

One of the headlamps on my car had burnt out. I couldn't immediately see how to change it myself (and didn't really want to) and the instructions in the car-book were somewhat cryptic.

So this morning, I called the place where I had bought the car.

they are "under new ownership" as they proudly trumpet. It is NOT a change for the better. They didn't want to help me, told me to go to an auto parts store and "they might put it in for you."

So I went to the local O'Reilly's. The last time I shopped there, there was a really nice helpful guy who sold me the windshield wipers and then - without my even asking - volunteered to put them on for me. And it was raining at the time! And the guy went out in the rain and changed the blades.

I guess he's gone on to somewhere else to work, or else O'Reilly management has sent down a dictum that their workers are not to help with car-work because of liability issues. The young guy (he looked about 17) that sold me the headlamp (and new wiper blades; it was time to change them and I thought maybe a bigger purchase would elicit more help) made no offer of help and kind of brushed me off when I asked for assistance.

So, the other customers showing up that morning were treated to the specatacle of me, in the parking lot, with the hood up, trying with all my might to wrestle the "locking pins" out of the headlamp assembly. I got one out; the other one seems to be bent or stuck. So I went back in and asked the guy if they had some kind of a tool. He just looked at me, clueless, then went out and looked at the pin and observed that he thought it was bent, but that I could probably reach in from the back and change the lamp without undoing the assembly. And then he retreated to the air-conditioned store.

So I tried that. Burned my arm on part of the engine, but eventually got the bulb changed.

What really irks me is that the "you have a bulb burnt out!" light on the dashboard is still on. I suppose that's something the dealer is supposed to flip a switch on to turn off, if you have a dealer who actually helps you.

I won't even talk about changing the wiper blades. I do not know how something so apparently simple can totally challenge all my powers of spatial reasoning.

It took me more than 45 minutes to do all of those things. I was grubby, drenched with perspiration, and angry as a wet hen at the end of that time.

I don't know. Perhaps it's a sign of aging - when I was younger, I would have looked upon changing my own headlight (even if it took me really long and I hurt myself in the process) as some kind of victory, some sort of "Look! I CAN survive on my own!"

Now it just makes me sad and tired and it makes me feel totally cut off. And it makes me worry: forty years from now, if I fall and break a hip, will the ambulance people say, "Weeeelllll...I know it's going to be tough but I think you can get yourself to the hospital." Because it seems that's how "customer service" is going these days.

Or maybe it's just that I've been having to take care of so much recently - from the big things (the transmission going out in my car when I was in a not-totally-familiar-to-me town) to the little ones (building my own darn bookcase), that I really long for one thing - ONE THING - to be easy, one thing where someone will say, "oh, hey, I can take care of that for you, you don't have to do it."

I feel like after this summer - the Summer of Things Breaking - I need some kind of a treat, some kind of a "fluster" (again, I've never heard of anyone outside my family who used that term) to try and make things right again, to try and smooth down my ruffled feathers. The sad thing is, I don't know what: I've got way more fabric and yarn stash than I will ever use, and the thought of adding to it (or to my "book stash") makes me cringe a little just now. And I'm still trying to reduce so going out for a lavish dinner somewhere or even a sundae seems counter-productive.

And driving anywhere for "fun" is out, not with gas costing what it does. And most of the "fun" places are hopelessly crowded right now. And anyway, it's too damn hot to go hiking or something like that.

I've thought off and on about getting satellite radio, because the radio stations in my town are well and truly pitiful, and I like the idea of turning on the "ambient" channel or the "World Music" channel and just leave it going, as a companion I don't have to talk to or even pay attention to, when I'm home alone. But satellite radio is one of those things where I look at the price (of the receiver and the subscription) and it throws some kind of mental switch in me to "off."

I think spending more than $100 on something "nonessential" is where that "switch" kicks in.

So, I don't know. I feel like I "need" something nice, but I can't think of anything that doesn't make me cringe either at my own materialism, or at the expenditure of money or gas, or at the possible impact on my health/attempt to lose weight.

Part of this is, I am sure, due to the fact that late summer is always my "black dog" (in the Churchillian sense) time of year. Even the thought of school starting back up is not enough to make me totally happy. It's a combination of allergies and unrelenting heat and no rain and the fact that the whole world out there seems to be falling apart...nothing particularly excites me or makes me look forward to it.

***

Incidentally, if my next car is even a Ford (and I'm not entirely convinced that it will be), it will be bought from some dealership other than the one I patronized before. (If I could be sure of finding someone in town who could do good work on it, my next car would be a Honda, but I'm not willing to travel to some city in North Texas just for routine maintenance. But the place where I live is a pretty "American" car-centric town. [scare quotes because some Hondas are now more "American" in terms of parts and labor than some, say, Chryslers.])