Thursday, October 02, 2003

i swear to you, i am a MAN.

i don't want to turn this into a whole "Does that make me gay?" thing (I can assure you I'm not. It's not even a question), but today after work I had a fairly emasculating experience.

There were some after-work cocktails had for someone's birthday (I was lobbying for a bar in a hotel that my well-informed sources say contains hot stewardesses on "LAYover", but I ended up losing to a nondescript strip-mall anchoring Irish bar which smelt of battered and fried foods), and as long-standing and long-suffering readers know, I partook. Pleasantries were exchanged, drinks were had, merriment was made, and lo and behold it was time for me to mosey on to my next appointment for the evening with my non-work friends. Fine. I get in the car, notice I need gas (ugh, $30 a tank these days, I thought we bought Iraq for the oil) and slough off to the filling station.

I notice at the gas station that my right rear tire is a bit low, so after filling up (did I mention $30+?), I went to fill up the rear tire, only to hear a hissing noise emanating from a ruptured sidewall (no doubt due to careless parallel parking on my part).

Ok. Now I've changed many a tire in my life, it's pretty simple.
1) get the jack--I know where this is. I've had a flat before, it's beneath the floor of the cargo area of my soccer mom wagon.
2) find the jack receptacle--done. midway along the car, the jack fits in perfectly.
3) jack the car up--done. at this point I'm feeling pretty good about myself and am seriously considering giving up advertising for a job on a pit crew for a race team somewhere. "Formula 1 maybe, the chicks are better--maybe NASCAR, the chicks are dumber--even better? Maybe I can do both, I wonder what their seasons are like..."
4) remove the lug nuts from the wheel--I'm strong for my size, this is not a problem, I understand how to use leverage to my advantage, that career in the pit crew looks pretty good right about now.
5) remove the wheel from the car--"Hmmm... why isn't this coming off?" I tug, I wiggle, I lift, I shake, nothing. I yank, I use leverage, I pry, nothing. I mean, I'm pulling so hard the car is about to fall off the fucking jack I'm pulling so hard. I'm playing tug-of-war in the Battle of the Network Stars, I'm pulling and leveraging so hard.

Defeat.

I fill the tire with air and drive the fucker home faster than air can leak out. I'm dealing with it in the morning. The fucker is stuck. Humiliating.

On the other hand, I'd like to see you try to do it without getting your paper jeans and buffalo shirt dirty. in flip flops. I swear to you i'm not gay, just borderline metrosexual. Even then, I swear to you this has nothing to do with the fact that I couldn't change the tire on my own car. uhh... wagon.