The Unsolicited Endorsement: WD40, my daughter and the internet

It was the sort of thing that can only happen to me, or maybe Jordan Green.

It happened in my car as I sat in a high school parking lot, waiting to pick my kid up from a thing at school. It was late, and I was exhausted.

I hit the recline button on the automatic seat and eased it all the way back, thinking I might catch a quick nap before he came out of the building, which is exactly what I did.

But when he came out, the seat wouldn’t go back up.

I drove it home that way, half asleep, holding the top half of my body upright by bracing on the wheel. It was such a stupid situation that I was too embarrassed to go to my mechanic, so I troubleshot the thing myself and narrowed it down, two days later, to a bad switch. I found one online for about $150 and was all set to order it when I decided to take one last crack at it.

I asked my daughter, who is maybe a couple years younger than the vehicle in question: “Do we have one of those little cans of air that you use to blast your computer keyboard?”

“Yeah, no” she said.

“Oh,” I said. “Maybe I should try blowing in it.”

“Why don’t you spray WD40 in it?” she suggested.

“What? No,” I said. “What do you know about WD40?”

“Nothing, actually,” she said. “The internet says you can fix anything with it. Like duct tape.”

Ridiculous.

But I did have a can of WD40 lying around. And after I blew into the switch a couple times with no result, I squirted a little WD40 into the little gap around it. I waited maybe eight seconds. And when I pushed the switch, the driver’s seat slowly began to rise.

I regard this as an absolute miracle, brought to you by WD40, the internet and my little girl.