Verging on Pertinence

The Sounding
We last left our hero upside down, head under a Camry steering wheel, legs draped over the driver's seat, blood rushing from toes to skull.
A yoga exercise promoted by Car & Driver? Hardly.
A demented Hide 'n Seek game with the neighborhood kids gone awry? Most Unlikely.

No, he, as in I (warning to readers! A treacherous hair-pin turn here from observing third person narration to self-involved first person trance), was assuming the necessary position to complete the second part of Ster eeh! Yiye! Eeh! Yiye! Yo!

In tight quarters, power drills are to be avoided, especially if the power driller is laying on his back, head resting on the brake pedal, and a mini nimbus cloud of flies coming to rest on his face. As most instruction manuals state, a person using a power drill should be standing, feet 2 feet apart, safety glasses firmly sitting on one’s face, temperature in the 65-75 degree range, with winds, at maximum, 5-8 mph NNE. This covers the manufacturer of the power drill from 99.5% of any liability claims. It also means the drill will last a lifetime if the instructions are followed to the letter. So, installing a car stereo using a power drill is asking for an incident or two beyond the scope of the instruction manual. To minimize the visibility of the incident(s), I make sure I have gum available, pre-chewed of course, which almost matches the car’s interior color. The gum should be kept in the mouth to maintain its flexibility. Plugging up mis-alligned screw holes with hardened Juicy Fruit is fairly difficult. Plus, chewing gum and drilling simultaneously should prove once and for all that you are capable of doing two things at once.

Our neighborhood is a lovely place. Houses are, as a French-Canadian might say of his bacon, side by each. Coziness verging on intrusiveness. Neighbors soon become friends and spectators. The only sore point is the parking, or really lack thereof, on the street. Homes are located on both sides of our short street, while parking is limited to only one side. There’s a minimum of 2 cars per house. No matter how tightly we park nose to rear of each other, physics comes into play and some of us end up leaving our cars a bus ride away. Like a snake detecting movement through ground vibrations or through the heat dissipating from a moving object, a resident of our street quickly learns to notice minute movements of cars as they try to remove themselves from a parking spot on our block. Extrication can involve multiple shifting from forward to reverse and back again. A tell to a resident of our street is the red brake light repeatedly going on and off.
A ha! A space is opening. The cars start queuing up.
When one is in one of the stereo installation positions that involves being upside down with one’s noggin placed on the brake pedal of a car, inevitably one will be resting one’s head on the pedal, isometric exercising be damned.
Head on pedal = brake light going on.
Head off pedal = brake light off.
Aside from the broken sentences being weaved by the stereo installer as he is sweating and groaning, other sounds are now joining in the cacophony. The brake light has lured cars wanting to park. The drivers see the light going on and off, but no movement. They tap the horn.
Nothing.
Again with the tapping.
Finally a long blare, an indication of ear-steaming impatience and one nerve ending away from bodily harm intentions.
The stereo installer slithers out from beneath the wheel, glares at the driver, and holds his Phillips screwdriver with malicious intent.
Words attached to deeply furrowed glares are mouthed. A crisis is averted when the driver peeks inside the installer’s car and notices the deconstructed interior. Empathy saves the day; the driver continues his search.

The cavity has been set up. One final step before the installation.
Soldering.
Suffice it to note that if, after soldering 200 wires together, one is not dribbling from the mouth and leaning to one side due to the mixing of heat, lead, and poor ventilation, then one has not soldered for a sufficiently long space of time. Frequent showers during this process is encouraged, unless you want that lisp to be permanent.

Once you’ve fully recovered your faculties from the soldering fumes, installation simply means attaching the stereo to some part of the automobile that will easily accept its insertion. Usually, as in this case, you’re simply taking out the old unit and replacing it with the new one. Sometimes, there was no unit there and you will need to be-friend Mr. Sawzall. Mr. Sawzall is a rather violent kind of guy. Personally, I’d never invite him inside my car as he has a complete lack of control when showing off his prowess. I will, therefore, not go into any further tales of those travails.
To complete your installation, you’ll need some screws, Phillips screws to be totally anal-retentive about it.
Phillips screws, when properly used, start out with heads that have a cross on them. These screws, named after St. Phillip patron saint of quickly boiling cursing, should be installed such that they are transformed, by the knitted sweat of your brow, into Torx head screws. Torx screws are not named after St. Torx.
Please! Let's be serious here. Torx is a word in Esperanto that combines five words from various languages, all usually spelled as ?*!@%#%$@. From Philips to Torx should take no more than 5-10 minutes of power drilling per screw. For the professional installer, transforming the Torx screw to a completely stripped screw is simply another 2-3 minutes of hard pressing on the power drill. When a high pitched whining noise is heard, the job is finished. The less knowledgable reader will certainly write a comment here as to the perceived lack of skill of the installer.
"Strip the screw? ", they ask.
"How are you going to take it out? ", they tsk-tsk.
(A pause here for that last question to find a safe mooring in that wide ocean sloshing inside the reader's head.)
Not taking the stereo out is the point that the expert installer is after. When you're out on the town, regaling all pedestrians with the high volume quality of your newly installed stereo, one thing that you don't want to worry about is taking your receiver out. After coming back to your parked car from a night of festiveness and frivolity, you may notice that your automobile's tires are gone, that a window is smashed, that your coat is gone, that your steering wheel has been savaged, and that the driver's air bag is missing.
You look inside.
Hammer blows have added a topographical touch to your previously smooth dashboard. Your stereo? Still there, thanks to the expertise of the installation evidenced by the stripped screws. Even the young hooligan who had been intent on procuring a stereo receiver that night must have taken a moment or two to loudly promote the inscrutability of those screws. As you dial for a cop and a tow on your cell, you turn on your radio and settle in for the wait. Ah, sweet music to take you through another of life’s moments.