Sad Little and Big Shiny

[cosmolinguist]

After how much I thought about car headlights being too bright yesterday, I helped D with the problems of some of the lights on his car -- mostly tail-lights but also headlights -- not working. I helped by putting the car in reverse (but not moving of course) so he could stand behind the car and see which wasn't working, by hitting the brake pedal when asked, by keeping him company on two trips to the auto parts store, and by giving him various kinds of surprising feedback on which lights were or were not working.

I also failed to help by abandoning him to get a much-needed haircut, oops. My head is less uncomfortable now! But it did mean V had to stand outside holding a torch(/flashlight) instead.

I have learned so much about how car lights work! What I still think of as high-beams and dims (which of course have different names here because everything does, which is even more confusing) are complicated! Made up of multiple bulbs, including the ones that when I was trying to identify them to D in the car I called "the sad little one" and "the big shiny one." Big Shiny turns out to be the full-beams/high beam one. Sad Little is for dims/side-lights.

Also I learned that I do not remember what order the pedals (accelerator, brake, clutch) go in on cars in the U.S. (because I've only driven my dad's car a couple times on his own land when he was convinced I could learn to drive even though when he said "put it in drive, that's the D and I said "which one's the D?" because I couldn't see the letters on the dashboard, he still said, like "third one along" or whatever it was instead of "get out of there, no one who can't tell that those are letters should be driving" which is what I thought) or on the tractors I used to drive.

Mostly what I remember about the clutch on tractors is I have to practically stand up to press down on sufficiently. And the same is kinda true with D's car because I didn't want to move the seat and he's a foot taller than me. When I had to press down the clutch for a while, or when I had to do that and the brake, I was just leaning forward in a weird gymnast-like way that I'm sure makes good use of the core exercises I was doing at lift club this morning.

Handily, the car was safe to drive at night by the time it was dark so we went to get stuff for other DIY projects (plumbers tape and some fittings to allow us to fasten brackets for our bikes to hang them on the wall). On the way to and from, we of course couldn't help but notice everyone else's car lights: many too-bright ones, but someone else who had a headlight out. D could by that point identify the technical name for the bulb in question.

Comments

[otter]

Sad Little and Big Shiny are what I want to call them from now on. Though I must say that when I'm driving, other people's Big Shinies make me sad/hurt my eyes.

Your dad story reminds me of when I'd tell my mom I was worried about getting lost on the way to a friend's house and she'd say "Just read the street signs, you know how to read". Well, I could read, but I couldn't SEE the signs. And I was probably 6.

[diffrentcolours]

Just as a note, there are three headlight bulbs - Sad Little (sidelights), Big Shiny (dimmed headlights) and Ow My Eyes (main / full beam). Ow My Eyes is the one for when you're driving at night on country roads with no other traffic and want to see animals before you hit them.

The problem with car headlights these days is that the Big Shinies look like Ow My Eyes.

(it's one of the Ow My Eyes which wasn't broken before and is now, but I don't use them often so it's less urgent even in winter)

[silveradept]

Sometimes we get all kinds of information because we have to help someone else do something that needs doing. That can be delightful, if we wanted it.

Also, driving tractors when you can't see the dashboard very much should have been a "never mind, I'm driving!" situation.