As we piled in the T&C last week to head out to our Bible Study, we found ourselves stuck in the driveway with a key that would not turn in the ignition cylinder. Now before you think I’m an idiot, it wasn’t the steering wheel locking pin. When I told people that we couldn’t get the key to turn in the ignition, the response was usually, “Oh, just turn the steering wheel a bit.”…..yeah thanks, I tried that first, but that wasn’t it.
Out of character for me, I calmly told Katie to take the kids in the house and I started to pray instead of cuss up a storm. For the record, laying your head on the horn and while praying must drown out the actual prayer itself, because that didn’t work. I spent the next 45 minutes asking myself, “what would MacGyver do?” Since I didn’t have a stick of gum and a paper clip, I decided to give up and have the car towed on Monday.
Hey, no big deal, we only paid $3300 for the van, what should I expect.
Sunday morning, with an extra hour to kill, (because we forgot to set the clocks back), I decided to turn to the internet to seek find out how to replace an ignition cylinder. That where I found this forum.
As I read about this exact problem others were having, several folks mention that a tap with a rubber mallet would fix the problem. How ridiculous! But hey, it couldn’t hurt, plus I could use it to beat myself on the forehead…
So I went to the tool shed, pulled out the trusty rubber mallet, got in the van, put the key in, and gave two light taps with the mallet.
To my surprise the van started right up like nothing ever happen….and we haven’t had the problem since. I won’t go into the theory behind why it worked, but I am just amazed that it did.
So from now on, along with the sippy cups, strollers, crushed fishy crackers, and numerous toys rolling around the floor of our van, you will also find the trusty rubber mallet.
Katie and I are firm belevers of the mallet’s magical powers and are planning to try it for other problems we encounter:
our dogs won’t quit whining to go out….use the rubber mallet
the kids are screaming…couple of taps with the rubber mallet
the old lady at the grocery store that insists on writing a check while in the self check out line…say hello to my little mallet.
So if you see a rubber mallet dangling from our key chains, you now know why.