Forget the better mouse trap — let’s build a better wiper blade
Sometime soon we are going to be standing there up to our hip pockets in snow, shovels in hand, thinking, “Wow, winter hit hard and fast.”
But it didn’t. Winter is subtly and slyly sneaking up on us right now. It’s like a ninja. The shadows are longer and the air is cooler as the sun weakens and even the “Hot enough for ya?” people are shifting from complaining about the heat and humidity to complaining about the frosty mornings. There’s no winning with these people. “Hot enough for ya?” goes to “Cold enough for ya?” in a blink. I’m surprised Mother Nature doesn’t just get fed up with the complaining and smack them upside the head with a barometer.
There are other signs of winter’s looming arrival. Just open your nostrils. The pumpkin spice smell is everywhere — not just in your latte anymore. It’s in cookies, liquor, pretzels, cereal, yogurt ... Just about anything that we can jam in our mouths or up our noses can be pumpkinspiced and we will lose our minds over it.
People are wearing giant scarves too. Come to think of it, people were wearing giant scarves even before the cool weather arrived. People have been wearing giant scarves for a few years now. What is with these scarves? They’re the size of blankets and people are draping them around their necks and over their shoulders as if they’re setting off to film a documentary about penguins and need something to keep the upper one eighth of their body warm. If you’ve ever seen someone unwrap and rewrap one of these scarves, you’ve probably also noticed that when it’s all unfolded, it could easily be used as a sleeping bag or a tent yet somehow it gets wrapped and twisted into a simple bit of neck flair.
My windshield also tells me that the seasons are a-changing. The automobile is an amazing thing. It may be the greatest invention we have ever come up with (except the PT Cruiser). Actually, maybe second greatest invention: I feel like we would be nowhere without socks. So socks first, then the automobile. Then Combos. They put the cheese right into the pretzel. It’s perfect.
The worst invention, however, is a part of the automobile. The windshield wiper blade is the “cure for the common cold” of inventions. We just haven’t figured this thing out. At this time of year, I go to my car every morning to find my windshield covered in an impenetrable layer of some mysterious substance. I would think it’s condensed water. That seems likely. But if it was just water, surely my scientifically engineered and fairly expensive windshield wiping blades would wipe it away completely and efficiently.
But they do not. They never have. Ever. I have never, ever had a set of windshield wiper blades that work. And if this sounds like a blatant ploy for wiper blade vendors to send me samples, well, let me tell you, I’m old and I have no journalistic integrity left so yes, please, send me your wares.
I have tried cheap wiper blades and expensive ones and every single windshield wiper I have ever owned in my 30plus years behind the wheel has left one little smear in a perfect rainbow arch, always on the driver’s side and always at exactly the height of my eye.
And these issues only apply when I’m dealing with a wet windshield. When that water freezes, the problems multiply. We crank our defrosters and the lazy among us try to clear the ice by squirting it with windshield washer fluid and eventually we can see but usually not until we pull into the parking spot at our destination. The trip itself is a bit of a Hail Mary.
Why, I ask, can’t we just make our front windshields the same way we make our rear windows? When our rear window fogs or ices up, I push a button and it clears up in 2.7 seconds. Let’s bring that technology to the front windshield.
As you can see, I’ve given this a lot of thought. I spend a fair bit of time on the road so I have time to obsess, er, carefully ponder, these issues. Sometimes while sipping on a pumpkin spice latte but never, and here’s an idea, while snacking on … dare I say … pumpkin spice Combos?