Putting on seat covers

Here’s one most guys and some gals can relate to!  Putting seat covers on a new vehicle, or putting new seat covers on, period.  Putting seat covers on is, at best, a nightmare.  I just got done putting my front driver’s side seat cover on in my new truck.  There are many elements that make this a difficult process.  Let’s walk through them together.

First, you have to find seat covers that will work with side airbags.  Most cars and trucks that you buy now have them, and if they don’t, they should.  I know, that’s another subject entirely, and we may address it sometime, but for now, let’s stick with finding seat covers that allow for them.  I found some bucket seat covers at Duluth Trading Co. that would work and that were even the right color (grey).  How did I find them?  I prayed.  A lot.  And I searched the world wide web over for seat covers that would work.  I finally landed on them by accident at Duluth Trading Co.’s website one day and they were originally for a different truck, but they work for this one.  Happy dance!

Next, you have to either go it alone, or read the directions.  Reading the directions in most cases is like going it alone because, no offense to my Chinese friends, but the languages don’t translate directly over very well and how hard coud it be, right?  It’s a seat cover!  Yes, it’s a seat cover.  Try to read the directions.  Duluth’s directions were very clear and concise, and just as good as the Chinese instructions after Step One, so I went it alone.

Third, you try to put the seat cover on the seat.  Pray that there isn’t a right and a left if you’ve bought a set.  It really stinks when you’ve gone through the Trials of the Gods to get a seat cover on, only to find out that you’ve put the right shoe on the left foot (no wonder it didn’t fit quite right, and at this point, you’re going to make the other one fit regardless!).  So let’s break this one down a little more, because there are a lot of steps to actually getting the seat cover on the seat halfway proper-like:

1. You unpackage the seat cover and throw away the packaging and the little silica packets that are always found with them.  These are a mystery I’d like to know more about, yet I’m not in the mood to find out at the moment.  I’m on a mission!  I’m going to get this seat cover on!  I’ve procrastinated long enough!
2. There was a good reason for that procrastination.  You unfold the seat cover and it looks nothing like any part of a seat.  It could be a good shopping bag if you weren’t buying much, but it’s definitely not a seat cover.  You dig the packaging back out of the trash and look to make sure that it says it’s a seat cover.  The packaging doesn’t lie (or does it?).  Okay, so you consult the directions again, just for orientation, and then lay them aside again, preferably where you can’t ever find them if you need them.
3. There may be way more pieces than there are parts to your seat enclosed in this packaging that you just threw away for the second time.  You check the packaging in the trash can a third time and look for those directions.  The directions are nowhere to be found, and it’s just a seat cover, right?  You can handle this!  Let’s go!
4. To my good fortune, the Duluth Trading Co. seat cover was a single piece, much more like a fitted seat tarp than a seat cover.  It had their logo sewn on what should go over the headrest as well, so that simplified orienting it immensely!  No seat cover’s going to beat me, I’ll tell you what!  Okay, now what do I do with all of these straps?  This thing has a lot of straps.  What on earth is that one for???  Never mind.  I’m putting the headrest portion of the seat cover over the headrest.  Everything else has to fall into place if I do that.  Guaranteed…right?
5. I next find myself reaching over, under, and around the seat, contorting, squirming, wriggling, lying awkwardly first in the front seat and then on the floor of the back seat compartment, then across the front seat again, and again on the floor in the back, attempting to get these many straps buckled in a way that will properly and adequately hold this fitted seat tarp in place.  My hands won’t fit where the straps are supposed to go, so I have to get fancy with my methods of thinking and executing this task as I find my hands scraped, bleeding, greasy, and battered from jamming them into places they don’t belong, not to mention dirty and grimy because it’s winter time out and it’s wet!
6. I finally get the straps all hooked, pull them tight, tuck in the sides of the seat cover, and, oh my stars, would you look at that?!  I got it on!  One seat cover per hour is probably not the going rate, but I did it!  I get in and sit triumphantly in my driver’s seat behind the wheel and readjust my seat because I obviously hit some of those  automatic controls during all of my wonderous acrobatic martial arts moves while getting the seat cover on.  I sit, winded, looking in the rear-view mirror to check and make sure my seat is where I want it.  It is.  I lock the truck and go inside to get the second seat cover – the one for the passenger side bucket seat.
7. I strip off several layers, get a drink of water in the kitchen, sit down in my chair at the kitchen table, and think for a moment.  I’m halfway done.  I think for a while longer, still somewhat winded from my battle with the seat cover.  Do I really want to do this again today?
8. Nah.  Maybe tomorrow.  After all, I just single-handedly (literally, because my left hand and wrist are injured and of limited use right now) got a seat cover on!  Let’s celebrate!!!

You can relate, right?