A Matter of Perspective

      I have posted numerous times on my attempts to be a handyman. I am not mechanically inclined but with effort and digging for information I can repair a wide variety of things. I ask people and get excellent information which is very helpful and makes me look good. On the other hand if I can help others I'll do it.

   Last February I bought a new car and just recently had a tow hitch put on it. I have a rather ancient utility trailer but it allows me to haul things a half dozen times a year. This summer I wanted one 16 ' two by four to fix my fence. They wanted $45.00 to deliver it. This is where the utility trailer saves you money.

   Now I had to get a connector to hook up the trailer lights to the car so that brake lights and signal lights would operate. At first I thought the job would be easy. You know two wires come from the trailer light. Can that be difficult? Well, the longer I thought about it the more complicated it became. Finally, with a little advice from a few sources I thought I had it right.

    I didn't want to pull my trailer out because of the snow so I asked a mechanically inclined neighbor if he's look at it to see if I was right.

   He came over and of course wanted the trailer pulled out and attached to the car. Of course, the lights didn't work. He wanted me to haul the trailer to his garage. I didn't want to do this but he gave reasons as to how he could help to do the connections so finally I agreed . He said we would do it in the afternoon and it would take 15 or 20 minutes.

    He came later on and said tomorrow morning. He came again and said this afternoon. I went over in the afternoon and he had a long list of reasons why the system wouldn't work. He had a number of certainly upgraded plans. I only wanted the wires hooked up and no super dooper wire enclosers. He also said I had to buy different lights. Then wouldn't it be nice to replace the box. 

    Well, I was talking as fast as I could as I only wanted wires hooked up properly and the rest was just fine. Finally he agreed , but I had to leave the trailer in his garage as it was behind a car he didn't want to move. 

    I'm sure he meant well. I think he is a perfectionist and when he sees something he just has to repair it to first class condition. That's not what I needed.

    So it all boiled down to a matter of perspective. What kind of trailer did I want? It was certainly not the trailer he wanted. 

    So after much worry about leaving my trailer I retrieved it and I still don't have the lights connected. 

   So there will be another post in the spring about how I got the lights working. I know I can do it.