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We've all heard the stupid saying around not "assume" anything as it makes an "ass" out of "u" and "me", but my assumption only really made me look stupid and not anybody else. Quite mundane really, the indicator/turn light on Karen's car had gone on the back of the car. She got a new bulb but couldn't undo the wing nuts in the boot/trunk so asked me to do it. I assumed that chaning the bulb would be the same as it has been on any car I've had in the UK, that you just open a flap and take the old bulb out and replace with the new. I thought it odd that it wasn't just a little door and that there were wing nuts in the first place.

After a failed first attempt that resulted in fetching a pair of plyers, I got the wing nuts off. Based on my assumption above I tried to pull away the plastic housing in the boot/trunk only to find that it was further fixed with a couple of screws. Frustrated and thinking I needed to go back in to fetch a screwdriver, I gave the housing a quick hit. At which point the back light unit shot out. (Kind of like that "Only Fools and Horses" episode when they take the chandelier down to clean it, but on a much smaller scale).

Whether it's just this car or a US thing, it seems that rather than having a simple flap to open to change a bulb, you have to unscrew the back light unit held in with three wing nuts and take the unit out to replace the bulb. Still, I think there was only half the street watching me make a complete hash of doing something so simple as changing a light bulb!