How Long Does It Take to Change a Lightbulb?

Apparently, it takes a full hour.

Of course, we're not talking just any lightbulb. We're talking the headlight of my car.

I remember in my old Honda I could change a lightbulb, a fuse, an airfilter so quickly and easily. It was a car a monkey could maintain, which was awesome.

This Subaru is alway strying to hide things, to create extra steps. Is their hope that I will give up and go to the dealership to get a lightbulb changed? Psh. I am too stubborn for that.

So when I got off work, I was determined to change my lightbulb. I pulled my car up under a light at work because I didn't want to be changing a lightbulb in the alley by apartment after dark. It was only 5:30 by the way.

I flipped through to the page in the manual, glanced over the instructions, rolled my eyes at how many things I had to move out of the way just to change the lightbulb.

I attempted to unscrew the non-screws holding the air intake thingy in place. The manual said unscrew. The little caps looks like screws from the top. I spent forever trying to unscrew two little things that have no threads to be unscrewing. They pop off. "Pry" would have been a better verb.

After the air intake thing was removed, I had to twist off the cover of the light. That was easy. When I was trying to unplug the electric thing from the lightbulb, I was worried I was gonna break something, so that took too long because I was trying to be gentle.

Then I couldn't get the little metal bar that locks the lightbulb in place to move out of the way...most of that was visual difficulty. My shadow was blocking the parking lot light. My flashlight was dying, and the angle was all wrong. Also the manual drawings had the perspective of me sitting on the engine to look at all this. My actual perspective was upside down and more from the top than directly in front. I popped it off eventally (when I went to put it back in I noticed it wasn't locked into a hole but more a groove that I could have more easily slidden it out of.

When I went to change the lightbulb, I lost the old one somewhere underneath the air filter stuff. It will be hanging out there until further notice.

Putting everything back in place was a much quicker process, and I'm proud to have changed the stupid thing. I am also relieved to no longer be at risk for a ticket.

Hopefully the other bulb lasts a while longer.