Monday update has nothing to do with the Explorer and everything to do with HP, Horrible Pontiac, since some folks are interested in or entertained by the Saga of Shelby's Cars™.
HP has had a host of mostly annoying intermittent electrical issues since the day I paid way too dang much for it, one of the more irritating ones being that on hot days it decides at random that turn signals are only for people who don't know hand signals, and wouldn't you know I was in the last class at my high school that got to take driver's ed from the ancient former coach who taught it, and he was all about rules and things that might come in handy one day so of course I know hand signals. The AC has never really worked so it's never been that big of an issue because my windows are always down, and the signals always come back at some point either mid drive or after parking it for a few minutes.
This morning it's colder than a witch's tit in a brass bra, my hands were already frozen because I'm too stubborn to start the furnace up until it gets miserably cold inside at night... HP decided that today was a fine day to experiment with having electrical issues in the cold, so instead of receiving blinking lights when flipping the nifty lever that produces them I got screaming static out of the factory tweeters instead. The static instead of blinking lights is a new development, and would have been entertaining if it didn't decide to crop up when I was trying to turn through obscenely heavy traffic. The way GM vehicles are wired makes me wonder if the engineers they use have ever actually had to screw around with a wiring harness before, there's literally NOTHING wrong with any of the wires, nothing wrong with the flasher fuse, nothing wrong with the switch, everything is visually, electronically, and mechanically groovy. I firmly believe that the previous owner must have been a mortician who did occult things on the side and managed to get the car possessed by a drunken frat boy.
I've been home 30 minutes and still can't feel my damn fingers.