D. I. Why?

There are a lot of professions for which I have the utmost regard: emergency service crews... medical health professionals... teachers... oh and the people who install car window tinting.

Seriously, anyone who’s ever tried to apply any adhesive covering to children’s school books will know the utter frustration of first aligning then affixing the fiddly stuff to the surface without leaving telltale bubbles below. It's a bad enough look on books, so who wants to drive around with the reminder of your incompetence staring you in the face every time you looked out the window (mind you, I have seen many many people who do).

If you have the same pale skin that my children and I do (bordering on albino), it’s not an auto fashion accessory as much as a flesh’s necessity.

And I have no qualms at all about paying someone to do the job for me.

But my Beloved, being a typical male, is positive that he can do it himself (I call it the DIY Chromosome), so off we go to the auto accessory shop and pick up a packet of tint.

Well, as soon as he took the roll out of the box I knew I was in for an afternoon’s entertainment.

So I put the kettle on to fix myself a cuppa tea, grabbed a magazine, and took up a position in the yard with a good view of the carport.

There was my Beloved, trying carefully to unroll the tint in order to cut off enough to cover the first window. “Do you think it would be wise to measure the window first and just cut off what you need?” I ask from my perch on the patio. “This is quicker” says he from somewhere under a metre of coloured plastic.

And it was- if you consider the speed with which the roll slipped from his fingers and disappeared under the car, unravelling as it went.

After a number of comments I couldn’t possibly print here, he managed to gather the tint, cut off a section of approximate length, successfully peeled off the backing paper, then set about applying to the auto glass.

Long story short, it was back to the auto shop to pick up another pack, and home again to try once more.

This time he got the tint off the backing paper and onto the window.

Unfortunately he also managed to capture the entire supply of oxygen in the air surrounding him, leaving enough bubbles under the tinting to give one the distinct impression of looking at the world through a bottle of Coca Cola®.

Determined not to be defeated by a packet of plastic, it was a round trip to the shops once more.

Anyway…

After the third attempt, my Beloved gathered up the wreckage, tossed it all in the garbage can, and leaving the still untinted car windows, stalked past me into the house muttering: “We will never speak of this again.”

And we haven’t.

Until now.


1989 Mazda ... c.$2700.00
3 packets of tint ... $149.97
An afternoon spent watching my Beloved try to apply it ... Priceless!


Jx
©2009