Today's word of the day: "de-engineered." It's when someone uses a complicated and/or dumb fix to avoid a simple solution — like the Arizona pickup owner who cools his cab with a room-sized air conditioner duct-taped into the rear window.
It's oftentimes called "There, I fixed it," and we've featured a lot of it:
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Caught by Jalopnik reader Dennis in Mesa, Ariz., where it's frequently above 110 degrees during the day, this setup gets the Al Gore Stern Fingerwag Of Carbon-Spewing Disapproval. Other motorists may be glad that the de-engineer has strapped this chunk of metal to the bed and window frame, but the generator looks like it's free to answer gravity's call, and that duct tape can only offer apologies to anyone sitting in front of the compressor in a crash.
Then again, we only see one side of the story. This is a Ford SuperCrew, so the cab may just be too large for the factory compressor to keep pace with global warming. The owner may have access to small window units and generators but no cash for a mechanic. Or, sadly, Arizona's housing market has become so terrible that this is no longer a pickup, but a studio apartment. If so, I just hope it has better engineering in the bathroom.
H/T to Dennis!