So Tire-d

Why is my life so complicated? I am not really sure about this.. one theory I have is that I was Hitler in my last life but somehow this does not make sense. I am driving to work this morning as I do most mornings and about 100 feet from my place of employment I hear a boom and the road suddenly becomes extremely bumpy. Now from past experience I know this can mean only one thing – FLAT TIRE. So I turn into my work and hop out of my car to see what happened. Well, let me tell you, this was no Fix-A-Flat jobby. Huge sections of the tire had holes in them that looked as if the Loch Ness monster had wanted a snack. I plan on changing the tire myself during lunch.

I go out to my car to change my tire. Now this is not a common occurrence for me. I am lucky if I can change a light bulb and tires are at my top skill level. I received some advice beforehand about not jacking the car on ICE, something about slippage or some sort of nonsense. I decide to heed this advice and move the car over to a dry area. I open the trunk and get the car-lifty thingy. This is easy stuff! Nothing to it. I am a man! So I open the storage area for the tire and pull that out. It was covered with soda from some cans that spilled in my back seat but no worries. I then try to get the handle thingy that operates the car-lifty thingy. It is plastered to the bottom of my car in a two inch film of coke-glue. I am finally able to get it lose after breaking one snow scraper and prying it out.

Now I do not know what kind of car you have but my car is a Subaru. Apparently people in Subaruland are extremely smart They make this bar that operates the car-lifty things that looks as if it should work. It has a hook, and a square bend in the middle that seems like you could just keep turning it and the car would go up. Be not deceived by the demon spawn because that thing does not work right. Either that or I need some more mechanical aptitude. I finally ended up using the handle end to turn the crank one rotation at a time, removing it after each turn, and placing it back in on the other side. After about fifteen minutes of showing my plumbers crack to any passing motorists I stand up and marvel at my work. The car is suspended in air. Woo hoo! Now we are talking.

So I go to the back of the car to find the wheel-removal-thingy. Umm.. where could it be hiding? Come on, this is no time for hide and seek. Damn mechanical nuisance. I march back into my workplace and ask a co-worker for a jack. Between smirks and concerned looks he lends me his Audi crowbar. Now that is a cute little setup. The bar is tiny, sort of like an Iggy crowbar. It has a little person crossbar for leverage to. The fine gentleman I work with showed me how to use the crossbar for leverage and I was in business.

I get to the car and try to take off the first nut. It is REALLY tough and is not budging. After consulting my one piece of mechanical knowledge – Left Loosey, Righty Tighty, I try to apply the crossbar skills I had just learned. Unfortunately I do not think I was paying attention enough because I could not figure out how it worked. What to do now? Hmm.. I know! Try a different nut. Same result. Ok, maybe the bottom one is looser? Nahhhhh. So tired and discouraged I decide to use my last resort: Strength! Now I do not have much of this so of course that promptly failed too. Finally I was able to figure out that if I kicked the crowbar hard enough I could loosen the nut and hopefully the car would not fall on my toe. Finally I was able to force all of the nuts to bend to my will. Sweating, tired, heart racing I completed the removal of the tire. I threw it in the trunk along with the car-lifty thingy turner and put the extra tire on. You know the small one? As a bonus the Audi leverage bar provided a much better way to get the car-lifty thingy to go down. I tightened the tire and walla. I went inside, sweaty, and all manly like, and returned the dwarven crowbar. All proud of myself until the gay guy at work say “Why didn’t you just call AAA?”. Fucking bastard! Shut up! I am being MANLY here.

So I am all set until I try to drive to my sleep study tonight. I am HOPING that the tire does not fall off or something. It would not be a whole lot of fun. I also am not sure how air is going to react with my body in this study. I am not much of an air or light kind of guy. So if I survive I will give you an update tomorrow.