I learned the lesson a few years ago not to leave anything valuable in my car. At that time, they stole a bunch of crappy tech equipment we used in starting our church. Since my car is parked out on the street, a major thoroughfare for people in the neighborhood, I know seedy people walking by check to see if they can swipe something. Such is city life. Almost a year ago, the automatic door lock on my driver's side broke. So even though you could open the door, the alarm was still activated. Someone tried to break in last year, but was frightened away by the honking horn. I knew at that time I needed to fix it, even ordering the broken part but . . . well, you know how priorities can change. This past Monday morning at 2am the car alarm went off again; yet another person attempted to break into my vehicle. I walked out to survey the scene and my door was partially open. So with that as motivation, I decided to take time the next morning and stop ignoring the issue.
It's crazy that I never took the time to fix the door. The reason I let something like that fester for over a year is because I knew it would be a pain; taking the door apart is a piece of cake but putting it back together is ridiculous. When I finally got it taken apart I realized that the part I thought I needed to replace wasn't actually broken. A nut fastening the automatic door mechanism to the door itself was gone, and I wasn't going to able to replace it.
I needed a hack.
It was time for the duct tape.
I was able to secure the mechanism to the inner wall of the door with duct tape. I thought I was good to go and was putting the door back together when I realized that I inadvertently taped it to the automatic window. I had to make two different attempts but I was successful. In the ten years of owning my Explorer, it was my first duct tape repair.
Is there a lesson here? I'll try.
First, don't put off those pesky little tasks. They're never as bad as you think.
And second, there's nothing that duct tape can't fix.