There’s a lot of things that I know about. I can tell you everything you want to know about Taylor Swift. I know too much about monkeys from a weird phase in third grade. I know how to play all the notes on an oboe, an important skill. I will never forget all the unnecessary information I know about the Reconstruction Era in U.S. history, thanks to my high school history teacher.
Something I know nothing about is cars. I don’t know or care what kind of car you have and I definitely don’t know anything about how cars work. However, I was not going to let that stop me when the air conditioner in my car broke. I imagine I was feeling the sort of feeling people who do their own taxes have. They could easily pay someone to do their taxes for them, but doing your own taxes is a matter of pride and that’s how I felt about my air conditioner. I was going to fix it, even if I did not know what I was doing.
After a quick read through a wikiHow article, I soon discovered that getting my air conditioner to work was going to be a lot more of a process than I realized. I drove to an auto store and bought a can of Freon, where I was warned to “be careful,” as if I am some delicate flower who can’t fix her own A/C.
I let the Freon sit in my trunk for three weeks because the thought of actually doing it sounded like a lot of work. After suffering through 90-degree heat and no air conditioner for too long, I finally decided to muster up the courage to fix the air conditioning. I started by watching a YouTube video. The first step was to get gloves and goggles, “in case something happens.” What does that mean? I did not want to know, so I drove to the nearest hardware store. I opted for some intense chemical goggles because they were only three dollars and they made me look like a mad scientist.
When I got back home I was ready to go. I said some positive affirmations to myself and felt confident that the A/C was going to be a piece of cake. Step one was easy. Open the hood. I got this. Except I didn’t. I spent 15 minutes trying to open the hood and it would not budge. Am I not strong enough? Is it broken? I felt so ditzy. I couldn’t even get the hood open. I inspected under the hood and realized there was a latch that was locking the hood! I turned the latch and bam, the hood opened!
I regained my confidence and moved onto the next step, find the low pressure port. Every single port looked exactly the same and the labyrinth that made my car operate made zero sense to me. I googled “2005 Toyota Camry low pressure port,” and was shocked to find a photo that directed me to my low pressure port. I searched and finally found the port tucked away and extremely hard to reach. Lovely.
After cutting and burning my hand to get to the port, I finally got the Freon attached. I followed the instructions and started moving the can back and forth. Then I realized because of how far down the port was, I could not see the valve that was supposed to tell me when to stop. Panic set it. What if I use too much? What if I use too little? What if I break it? I’m going to break it.
I reached my hand in the passenger window and felt a cold breeze coming from my air conditioner. I actually said out loud, “It’s working! It’s working!” I figured this meant I could stop, but I could not remember if I was supposed to turn my car off before or after I removed the can from the port. I one handed texted my step-dad, a mechanic, who urged me to please turn the car off first. I turned the car off and removed the can. The beautiful sound of the Freon getting unattached from the port let me know that I was done.
Now my A/C is colder than before this whole process so I am counting this as a win. Except now it is freezing cold outside and pouring rain so there was really no point in fixing my A/C after all. But at least now I can add “fixing a car air conditioner” to my list of things that I know about.
