It was a normal time after work. I get off of work early in the afternoon but go in before dawn. One of the running lights for the ’66 VW Beetle was out. This, in and of itself, is not a big deal, but because of the way the beetle is wired, the bulb being out caused the running light in the tail light to be out as well. Or, so I thought.

So, with an empty stomach and some built up angst, I headed to my local auto parts store. I handed the young lady at the front desk the old bulb. She squinted and asked, “Is this for a Flashlight?”.

“Would I be coming to an auto parts store to look for a flashlight bulb?” I asked with angst.

“Well, sir, you never know what people are looking for”, she replied in a snarky tone.

She was actually very helpful once we got past my impatience for stupidity and her temper. She got me the right bulb and I was off again.

I came back home, installed the bulb , turned on the running lights. The passenger side worked, but yet again, the drivers side was still out, front and back! I was livid. I had installed new H4 Halogen lights with LED turn signals on Friday. That is when all of this started. Then, as if God himself was speaking to me, “The lights are fused left and right, dummy”.

Perhaps when wiring up the new lights on Friday, I had inadvertently crossed a wire, causing a fuse to blow? So, I started checking the fuses, one by one. There are only 8 torpedo fuses, so it didn’t take long to find the culprit. There it was, staring me in the face. All of my worries in a simplistic piece of copper wrapped around a ceramic base.

I steadfastly looked around for another fuse to no avail. I’ll just run up to the store and get another one, I thought whilst jumping into my truck and heading back up to the auto parts store. I went in the door and was greeted with and smile, and a question, “You’re back?”

“Just hunting a fuse. I will be out of your hair in no time.” I replied, as I made my way towards the fuses. I looked all over for the Bosch style fuses. They didn’t have any out, so I asked my new best friend. She looked and looked. They couldn’t even order them. It’s an effing fuse, I thought, as I left.

After that major waste of time, I called another auto parts store and the clerk had no clue what I was talking about and told me to call someone else. So, in a last ditch effort, I called O’Reilly’s not expecting a different result. The young lad on the other end had no clue what I was talking about, but he said, “Let me Google this, so that I can see what you’re talking about”. I knew that I had someone I could work with!

The lad came back after way too long listening to 80’s elevator music. “I have 8AMP, 16AMP, and 25AMP”. I felt at this point that I had already won the lottery. The kid actually knew what I was talking about! But, I was trying to withhold my excitement, because he could be mistaken. I told him I would be right over there to pick them up.

It took forever during the worst traffic of the day to get there, but as soon as I got parked, I headed in and found the redheaded lad I’d been talking to over the phone. He took me straight over to the fuses, and there in their glowing glory were the fuses I had been looking for for what seem like hours. He rang me up for several packs of fuses. I ran out and did the victory dance in the parking lot.

The literal hell a man has to go through to get a fuse. I came home, installed the missing fuse, and it works perfectly. The moral of the story is to trust the Irish. It took a redhead lad at “O’Reilly’s” to get me what I needed. Also, have faith. 🙂