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Thursday, May 06, 2021

It All Went Dark

I forgot to tell this story when it happened, but the panic is still planted firmly in my memory, so here we go.

When I took my dad for his second vaccination in March, it was raining. If you remember, the only appointment I was able to get him at the time was 45 minutes away. So we reach our destination, I dig my umbrella off the floor in back, and we head in.

This time, he was brought back right away, we waited our 15 minutes to make sure he was okay, did a little shopping, and then went back to the car. And my screen in the console stayed dark.

Okay, this has happened before when the system has been updating itself. We'll wait for a few minutes, it will come up, and we'll leave.

Only it didn't come up.

This meant no backup camera, no radio, no navigation (although I use my phone more than the car's GPS, and a few other less critical features.

I carefully backed out of the spot and drove the 45 minutes back home. I really expected the screen to come back at any moment, but it didn't. My last hope was that it would return the next time I started the car, but that Saturday, when I went out for groceries, it stayed dark.

When I left the first grocery store, I was trying to think of things I could try to get the screen working again. My mind was as blank as the screen.

My one and only thought was it's a touch screen, so what if I push? I pushed.

I don't know if it was a coincidence or if I really did something, but the system rebooted (like I'd expected to earlier in the week) and everything was back to normal in a few minutes.

It was a huge relief, but man, I'm dependent on that backup camera.