Car lights and pride.

I am a fairly competent guy -- by my own estimation, at least -- and I hate failing at challenges.

My biggest strength, I believe, is resourcefulness. In other words, Google is my friend. Give me a laptop or smartphone and an internet connection, and I can do just about anything.

Till recently.

My wife's driver's side headlight went out. No sweat; super hubby was here. How hard could it be? Besides, I had the Holy Grail of consumer car repair: The Hanes Manual.

I went out and looked at it. The setup was a tad different than my car, but with my Hanes Manual, it had to be easy. Right?

Then came hurdle 1: my beacon of manly car repair, my sweet Hanes Book, was missing.

I looked high and low for it. Nowhere. Not good.

In truth, I wasn't too perturbed. I still had Google.

I searched high, and searched low. Finally, after hearing some genius wax authoritatively about entering the wheel well through the interior of the car, I was done. DONE!

"Don't worry... I'll just take it to Sam" my wife suggested, referring to our trusty mechanic.

Not on my watch. I have no problem with taking serious stuff to Sam. Granted, I have a low threshold, but in that moment, changing headlights was that self-imposed limit.

So, I grabbed my tool box, and stepped outside, daring any of our neighbors to ask me why my 18V Dewalt cordless drill looked so new, much less why I was using it on a car.

I toiled all afternoon. Soon is was dark. My wife came out and looked at me sympathetically, looking wondrously at the sweat on brow. She guessed (correctly) that the perspiration was caused by shame.

"I think we should take it to Sam," she said quietly.

I agreed.

I refused to shame myself by calling Sam. I had her do it. On Saturday morning, I drove her car to Sam.

I was apologetic to Sam. I knew this was a major job, and I didn't want his ego to take a beating. I knew how that felt. It wasn't his fault; it was the blasted American engineering. I had my blog idea list ready to go, and I was ready to wait out this job.

It took a while. About 180 seconds.

I hadn't even pulled my BlackBerry out, and he was done. With both bulbs. Two tabs, and bingo.

"Anything else?" Sam asked.

Whatever.

I got in the car, and drove around to kill time. Still, when I got home, my wife looked knowingly when I came in.

"That was fast," she said.

"Don't wanna talk about it. Ever." I stomped up the stairs.

Pride cometh before a fall. I comfort myself with the fact that no one, and I mean NOBODY, can change a tire faster than me.

Ha.

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