About a screw or two

I'd like to introduce a new acronym, by way of a brief boring story. The acronym is NVCAA, and it stands for Not Very Cute At All. Now, to illustrate this acronym's use... if there's one thing about my Civic that's just Not Very Cute At All, it would be the air filter screws. Here's the story.

My car needed a new air filter. So, one day when I finally remembered, I stopped by NAPA and picked up a nice dandy new one.

Now after my dad's demo, I knew that changing the air filter would be a piece of cake. Unfortunately, if you work during winter, there's usually not much light left outside work hours to do your car maintenance. So that's when you borrow a friend's handy lantern and handy screwdriver set, go out in the cold wind and pop your hood to do the job in the dark. By the way, this screwdriver is one of those one-size-fits-all - one "driver" with a nice selection of screw "heads" you can pop in, depending on what type you need. This is an important detail in the story, so please take note.

I got two screws nicely loosened, only to find that the third was, yes, nicely rusted and the screwhead rapidly losing its distinct insignia. So I screwed 'em all back down with rapidly numbing fingers.

At my dad's suggestion, next day after work I bought some WD-40. Yes, I did find it all by myself in WalMart, thanks for asking!

Enter Saturday. Sharon applies WD-40 before taking a walk. Returns from walk to happily set about unscrewing all three screws, including the third now de-rusted one, which doesn't take to the screwdriver well but cooperates with pliers.

Time to pull off the air filter, except, it doesn't pull off. Darkness is now descending. Thoroughly puzzled, I dash off to fetch the lantern and discover a fourth screw, and yep, this one is nicely rusted too. Dash off to fetch the WD-40. Apply liberally. Sigh. Remove all the tools, take a last look around to make sure I've got 'em all before dumping the hood. Oh wait! Maybe I should screw down the air filter again, since I'm obviously not going to get this done today. So I twist 'n screw down two of them. I reposition for the third, only to find that the eject-able Phillips screw head has quite disappeared, without even a clatter. I hunt around, no success. Find the next-sized Phillips and finish the job.

Sunday morning dawns very wet and muddy, and daylight does not reveal the missing screwdriver head. And so, I drove off to church, wondering if that piece of metal was sitting under my hood somewhere - if it would melt, or maybe get lodged in the engine and explode my car. Unlikely, but these are the things that keep me up at night and keep me alert on the road.

To be continued... But hopefully that's enough to illustrate why air filter screws are NVCAA.