Banky For President

I just got this email from one of my friends and had to share:

Some of you are aware I’ve had a sticky seat belt buckle in this little Honda Prelude I bought recently. The thing won’t release for anything (stuck for no apparent reason whatsoever), making it an awkward dance to get in and out of the car through the seat belts which are attached to the door.

I’ve had 3 other people try and release it by hand, thinking it was just me being a dolt and not doing it right. No dice. So, I let it go for a couple of weeks, dreading the prospect of either A) taking the seat out entirely and fooling with it, or B) taking it to a Honda dealer and wailing “Safety recall!” at the shop manager.

Today, I went ahead and took the seat out myself, figuring I have an hour to fool with it before I need to be somewhere.

First, I check to make sure it’s still stuck and not gonna be nice. Yep, still stuck.

Ok. Get my tools, remove the floor mats, remove all 4 of the little plastic covers without breaking them to reveal the seat bolts. Search for 5 minutes to find a deep well 14mm socket, remove all 4 bolts, remove electrical connection on bottom of seat (seat belt warning light), awkwardly remove seat, turn it upside down, slide old shop pillow under headrest so as not to dirty it up on driveway, lean upside down seat against door. Now I remove plastic thingee covering the seat belt buckle bolt, and search another 5 minutes to find a stubby 17mm socket. Slowly loosen this bolt, cuss at the lock washer that prevents me from removing it before digging that stupid thing out, and remove stuck buckle. Oops, can’t really remove it entirely because the seat belt warning light wire goes right into the buckle and only gives me about 2 inches of free movement to fool with this ironically evil inanimate object.

Now I’m starting to move away from “mature logical adult who can take apart things gently without breaking anything” to “16 year old kid with a temper who doesn’t need a freakin’ seat belt warning light anyway, mothatrucka kooksucka.”

There are now tools everywhere, my seat is upside down leaning against the inside of the door, and I’m about two seconds away from reaching for the wire cutters.

Then, “click.”

The stuck seat belt buckle releases by itself, as I stare at it, for no apparent reason whatsoever. None.

No no no. It wasn’t some special angle or anything like that. I tried that mofo every 30 seconds as I disassembled the seat and removed it. It just decided it was time to release. Niiice…

After staring at it in disbelief for awhile, I decided to stupidly rebuckle it to see what would happen……..

Fortunately, it seemed to work just fine, no matter how many times I buckled and released it. Nothing was jammed in there. Nothing appeared bent or broken. It just decided to release.

I went ahead and put everything back together, all the while imagining how, when I die, I’m going to lift a LOT of weights when I’m in heaven. And then, once sufficiently beefy, I’m going to find Mr. Murphy…..and beat him into a coma, and then stuff him into the trunk of a little Honda.