Back up cams and blame

My Father bought a wireless camera to install into the back of his car a couple of days ago. The camera mounts to the license plate and has to be wired to the back up lights for power.

The instructions called for drilling a hole into your trunk so as to pass the power cable. As you can imagine, Father was reluctant to drill a hole into his precious Lexus, so he decided to try and pass the hole through an already existing hole that housed the license plate light bulb. After refusing my suggestion of pushing out the bulb cover, he finally accepts that this is the only method to pass the wire through the trunk. One hour later we removed the covering on the reverse side of the door to access the light assembly in the back. Father sets me with the task of pointing out the reverse light for him while he gets into the car. I spot them and point them out to him. He instantly refuses to believe that I choose the right lights. He puts the car in reverse, engages the parking break and gets out to see for himself. Unfortunately the car didn't go berserk and run away. I know that would have made for a more interesting story, but alas, it just didn't go down that way.

He verifies that I did indeed pick the right light and we start to wire up the camera. I will note that there was a little 30 min adventure to find the volt meter to determine which wire was the positive and which was the negative. Nevertheless, the volt meter was never found and 30 minutes were wasted. At the last moment after we had the camera hooked up and working, my Father crossed the wires, sparks flew, and the back-up lights were gone. I knew that a spark + lights out meant that a fuse blew.

Father believed that the problem lay with the main fuses under the hood. I told him that those fuses control the major components of the car while the minor fuses are under the driver side dash. He refused to believe me and claimed that I didn't know what I was talking about. One thing to know about my father is that once he has come to a conclusion about something there is very little you could do or say to change his mind.

I get under the dash locate the fuse box, remove the cover and realize that it is written in some sort of Lexus/Toyota code that I cannot decipher. I ask Father for the owners manual which he informs me is missing. Yay. I do the next best thing, I start pulling fuses to find the one that is burnt out. Mind you that the Radio is clearly labeled and I know well enough not to touch that one. After going through a few of them, Father gets impatient and claims that I am, going to "fuck up his car!"

I tell him that it is a process of elimination. He tells me to get away from his car and leave it alone he will take it to the dealership tomorrow. I tell him that it is a simple thing to change the fuse just allow me to find it. He refuses to let me fix the car claiming I know nothing about fuses.

When he turns on the car the airbag light is on and he cannot control the AC and some other things on his dash. Now he is pissed and is yelling at me that I have "fucked up the car!"

I tell him that it it just a fuse but he will not listen. He is pretty sure the computer is broken because of me touching the fuse box.

Long story short (Too Late!), he gets back from the dealership today and tells me that the problem was one fuse under the dash. I could have fixed the car if he would have just let me.

Let this be a lesson to all you out there. I am always right! Never challenge anything I say because I will always be right!

And another thing, It pisses me off when someone gives up working on something. Pisses me off to no end when they wont allow me to finish. I hate to give up. I will try with all my will and to the best of my knowledge to fix something.


Do or do not. There is no try?