How Many Angela's Does It Take to Close a Door?

I had an interesting occurrence on the way to work today. I loaded Alexa, myself, and our bags into the car this morning and went to back out of the driveway. I noticed that the passenger's front door wasn't closed. I reached across the front seat to try to shut it, only to have it bounce back open. Muttering under my breath I got out of the car and walked around to shut it from the outside, only to have it bounce back open. I examined the door frame to see if there were any things sticking in the way. The usual seat belt suspect was stowed in its correct location. I bent down and looked at the latch itself and noticed that a piece of metal that probably shouldn't be was hanging down in the way. I poked it my finger only to have it drop back down in the way.

At this point I became keenly aware that this simply wasn't going to work. I was already running a few minutes late and needed to leave now to get Alexa to daycare and me to work. I grabbed the only thing I could think of (please remember all things mechanical seem to elude me) a bungee cord out of the back of my car. At this point I think we should all marvel at the fact that I have a bungee cord in my car... I actually have three of varying sizes. See, my dad knew what he was teaching me! I wrapped the bungee around the inside door handle of the passengers door and the other end I hooked under the driver's seat on something metal (true technical term).

It worked out pretty well! I have a 30 minute drive down a fairly windy highway to get to work. There were a few occasions, on some of the sharp left turns, that I need to reach out and hold the cord with my right hand, but managed to get Alexa dropped off and me to work basically on time.

During my planning period I called the garage across the street and asked if they could look at it. They said to bring it over and they would see what they could do. So on my lunch break I dropped the car off and asked the guys that even if they couldn't fix it if they could just securely close it then I would be able to make do until the part came in. One guy joked that he could weld it in place. I said, "We shouldn't rule out any options."

I went back at the end of the day to pick the car up feeling a little nervous about how much money I was going to have to hand out to get this fixed. I walked in and asked the guys how it went. "I got it to close three times in a row," he told me. This was followed by a variety of chuckles from the three other men sitting around the office.

"Seriously? The passenger door?"

"Yeah. Here I'll walk out with you and show you." I stood in the parking lot totally befuddled and watch him open and close the door.

"OK, I swear it didn't do that this morning. He went on to explain maybe the lubricant was cold this morning (it was like 12 degrees) and it got stuck but once the car warmed up it worked again. He told me to spray so de-icer up there if I wanted... like that wont just end badly. I got home today and decided I will try to just avoid using that door for the rest of the winter, and possibly look at moving to warmer climate. I mean if the car is even complaining!