The Chop Blogs....: No, no, don't worry! I have a Ding King!

Dear Chumleys,

When I returned home from a short vacation two weeks ago, I went out to check on my car (my beloved 1998 Honda Civic) which had been parked outside my apartment for the duration of the trip. I was less than pleased to learn that someone had kicked it. Just kicked it, for no reason. Some jerk was walking by and just decided to give it a boot. I came home to a huge dent (on the sidewalk side of the car) and a visible boot print in the accumulated car-dirt. The car is getting on in years, and I'm no longer able to concern myself with every small dent or scratch that it incurs, but this was a particularly well-aimed tolchock which connected with "Vickie" at a sweet spot directly in front of the passenger side door, rendering the door unopenable. Well actually, to be fair, the door was openable, but not all the way, and opening it more than 6 inches caused the dent to get even denty-er. I was disheartened but not un-optimistic when I biked over to the Kragen Auto Parts store later that week, fully believing that if I could only obtain the right caliber of "As-Seen-On-TV" product, I could make an easy fix of this problem. This is when the "Ding King" entered my life.

At first I was a little skeptical. The DIY dent fix kit I had envisioned involved a high-powered magnet. The Ding King uses hot glue instead, but not that wuss-level, fashion-design-school-dropout, high-energy-Surprise-Rock-band-makes-their-own-T-shirts-style opaquely white glue...the Ding King hot glue gun uses balls-to-the-wall black glue. The glue of Hades! I figured it'd be worth a try. One thing that slowed up my use of the system was the fact that I needed an outlet (to heat the glue gun) within reach of my car. This is an impossibility at my apartment, and so the job waited another week before I took it over to Phil's place, where he, Jimbo and I finally got to it this Sunday late afternoon.

Amazingly, the Ding King worked!

Yeah it took some figuring out, and yeah we had to use it repeatedly, and yeah we finished the job with Philby's silverware sub'd as a makeshift crowbar, but it must be noted: the task was accomplished in huge part due to the design and execution of the Ding King DIY dent removal kit.

Also--though the instructional video (above) makes no mention of removing the black glue spots from your car, we were able to do it with boiling water and a small plastic scraper! Yes!

Just before we got done with it, I did manage to give myself probably the worst burn I've ever had (hot glue really really really hurts).

And only hours after a manicure!

Once the passenger side door became fully functional again shortly thereafter, I considered the "thumb slug" a fairly reasonable downside to what was actually a financially triumphant situation (a $20 fix for a $300+ problem!).

Damn was I ever proud of myself and my friends for being so resourceful and frugal and even innovative. And as a patted myself on the back for a job well done, I scoffed at my own skepticism about an awesome product like the Ding King. Billy Mays: Rock Onward, my friend.

If you have a "ding" that needs some "kinging" you should definitely talk to me.

Then last night after the Islands show up in North Beach and some pretty killer Indian food in the Tenderloin, as I'm driving Jimmy and Ariana back to Potrero, some guy broadsides us at a four way stop and manages to hit the exact spot of the original boot-induced ding. Everyone's OK, but the car is hurting bad. The Ding King definitely cannot handle this one.