You know when you are driving
through town on Williams Avenue in the left-hand (fast) lane and all of a sudden you come
upon one of “Fallon’s finest” meandering in the right-hand (slow) lane? You take it down to 25 miles per hour as subtly as possible, fingers
tapping on the steering wheel, pretending like you’re all well-behaved as you ease on past him, which I’m not convinced is a good thing. It
happened to me a couple of weeks ago after a particularly grueling day in Reno
with all three kids.
And then I came up
to that horrible left hand turn at Maine Street which is a gauntlet even on a
good day, and at the very moment I reached the intersection the light turned
yellow so of course I went right through it rather than deploy the air
bags. Any cop would have clearly had to
stop at the resulting red light, allowing for plenty of get away time.
So
we’re cruising along in front on the old post office, radio blaring, kids
singing at the top of their lungs headed for home two blocks away when the
woop-woop sirens went off and sure enough lights flashing, he’s right behind
me. Clearly I have sinned.
Pulling
across both lanes of traffic, and mumbling under my breath, I dig in the glove
compartment for insurance, and ransack my purse for the driver’s license which
I’m sure he thought I got out of the gum ball machine at the grocery
store. I swear to the kids I can’t
imagine what I did wrong. I wasn't
speeding, the light wasn't red, what the h-e-double hockey sticks could he be
pulling me over for, when he appears over my left shoulder and asks that most
thoughtful of all questions, “How are you today?”
“I
was doing really well up until about two minutes ago,” I say.
And he says to
me, “You aren't going to be doing very well if you keep driving on that flat
tire.”
Oh.
Well.
Isn't that nice. I swear one of those
kids snorted under their breath.
So
it’s now 5:30 pm and the guy at the tire shop says by cell phone that all his
help has gone home for the day but he’ll send someone to the house first thing
in the morning to change the tire.
Beautiful tire shop man.
However, at 10 am the next morning when the tire is still flat in the street, the Man-child has a dentist appointment, my sense of humor has all but evaporated and I’m seriously contemplating a Fallon Chapter of the She-Woman-Man-Haters Club, I decided to teach the kids how to change a flat tire. What the heck, it can’t get any worse.
However, at 10 am the next morning when the tire is still flat in the street, the Man-child has a dentist appointment, my sense of humor has all but evaporated and I’m seriously contemplating a Fallon Chapter of the She-Woman-Man-Haters Club, I decided to teach the kids how to change a flat tire. What the heck, it can’t get any worse.
Ha! We will use the term “jack” loosely. We will use the term “tire iron”
loosely. We are happy we are not using
expletives.
Referring
in the little direction book from the glove compartment to page 118 we see a
diagram showing the thingy that the jack is supposed to attach to on what seems
to be a stable piece of metal near the right front tire. Whoever drew the picture was not aware of the
plastic molding which effectively prevented the proper placement of said jack
and optimum turning radius for the tire iron.
I’m
am now sitting on pavement in an adorable little pink outfit, cranking the tire
iron at quarter turns to raise the top of the jack close enough to attach it to
the thingy while the Big Daughter lies under the van directing the jack into place. The Man-child is trying to hold the molding out and
away from our immediate work area, the baby is in her stroller providing
instructions in two-year old babble from the sidewalk, and cousin Jeremy is
telling a fascinating story about the baseball game last night. Morning traffic cruises by and I swear the
guys in the big triple-trucks hauling dirt from the new subdivision are
hysterical. My life is rich and full.
Luckily, we remembered to loosen the lug nuts before we got the whole mess jacked up,
but it took quite an effort to get things high enough to get the flat tire
off—a quarter turn at a time.
An
engineer I’m not, nor do I possess a particular aptitude for spacial relations
so when we tried to put the spare tire back on and the van was not sufficiently
elevated, I almost burst into tears. Those poor kids stood there and held that dirty,
nasty tire up while I kept turning the tire iron, taking it off the jack and
repositioning it and turning it again over and over until I was certain the van
would come crashing down or the jack would just break. They were cheering and yelling and saying
“one more turn, mom, no, one more…come on you can do it.”
At
the very moment when I’m feeling the most venomous and hateful, put upon,
overwhelmed, and disgusted with the world, The sweet Man-child pipes up, “Mom, this is so much
fun, we need to do this more often!”
You
know, I guess it's all about perspective.