Tire Change
Wow, yesterday was one whirlwind of a day. As you may know from reading the guest post from none other than Jim at
Irregularly Periodic Ruminations then you know it was my birthday. Every year I take off from work on my birthday, but for some reason this year I decided to go in, which after doing so, I wondered why I hadn’t taken off. I did manage to take part of the day off, so I was able to get a hair cut before going out to dinner with the family. I’m starting to go off on a tangent here, what I really wanted to say before posting something today is thank you to Jim for a great post - he’s my new blogging hero. He’s like Obi Wan Kenobi to my padawan ways and someone who I want to be like when I “grow up.” I’d also like to thank everyone that visited my page and left birthday wishes. I started going back and checking out some of the blogs and they are all great. I haven’t gotten to all of them, but I will as soon as I can. I hope that some of the visitors from yesterday will continue to read this blog and any advice or ideas are greatly appreciated. Once again, Thank you Jim and thank you allNow, for my post for today…enjoy J
Tire Change
I’ve never really been very mechanically inclined nor am I the kind of guy that can easily do those “manly guy things’ that most guys do and I can admit that without feeling any less masculine. I can’t take a pile of scrap lumber and build a house. I can’t even build a birdhouse unless it involves cutting a milk jug, adding bird seed to it and hanging it on a tree - but I guess that would be a bird feeder and not a bird house, so I can‘t even do that. I can’t take a carburetor apart and then put it back together - Hell, I can’t even spell carburetor correctly without spell check. I can’t take the plumbing under the sink apart and put it back together so it works. I’m sure many of the guys that read this can do all those things and many more, but the fact remains, there are many “manly things” that I can’t do, but one thing that I can do is change a tire. I’ve changed many tires in my life and not all have been on my car, so I wasn’t too worried when I walked out of the store and was approached by a young girl who asked me if I could help her fix her flat tire.
She told me that her car was parked on the side of the building and began to lead me in that directions. As we turned around the corner I saw her car and sure enough the tire was flat. Although I’m not mechanically inclined I can tell when a tire is flat.
“Yep, it’s flat” I said. Hey, I never claimed to be a rocket scientist.
Now, up to now everything seemed normal, but this is my life and in my life most times things are not normal. I don’t know how I didn’t noticed the guy leaning up against the car when we first turned the corner, but he was there. Standing as big as a guy can stand in front of a flat car. When I saw him the first thought that went through my head was that it had all been a set-up and I was going to get robbed or whatever bad guys do to you on the side of buildings. I thought it’s going to suck for them because I paid with a debit card and didn’t have any cash on me. I guess they could take my bag with the can of spaghetti sauce and make it “a pasta night”.
“Thanks for helping us” the guy said.
“This is my boyfriend” the girl mentioned the guy’s name but at the moment I can’t remember it so I’ll just use the name Jose. “This is my boyfriend Jose, he’s never changed a tire before and doesn’t know how .”
I looked at “Jose” and realized this guy was a few years younger than me, he was taller than me, and you could tell he went to the gym a lot more than I did (Hey, I just started back at the gym, so give me a break) - so, I wondered how come he couldn’t change the tire himself. He was more than physically able to do it.
As if reading my mind “Jose” said. “I really don’t know how to change a tire and besides I really don‘t want to get dirty.”
Now, if that was not the strangest thing I had heard all week then I don’t know what would be. First of all, I think I’d be too embarrassed to have my girlfriend ask some strange guy, not that I’m strange just a little eccentric but that‘s part of my charm, to change the tire because I didn’t know how. I looked at the couple and I’ll admit they were dressed nicely, but not any nicer than any other person getting off work. I don’t think that I would ask a stranger to change my tire if I could do it myself, dressed up or not. I told the couple that I wasn’t going to change the tire for them, but if they wanted I would talk Jose through it and help him change it. I figured it was one of those things where if I taught him how to change the tire he wouldn’t have to ask anyone else to change it for him next time - you know, like that if you give a poor guy a fish he’ll eat for a day but if you teach him to fish he’ll be able to eat forever story. He might get tired of eating fish, but that’s not the point. Anyway, Jose didn’t want me to teach him how to change the tire, he and the girl were insistent that I change the tire for them, so I just walked away. As I walked away I heard the girl mumble something I couldn‘t make out except for the two words, “…Fucking Asshole.”
I turned, waved at them and told them to have a nice day.
Thinking back on it now, I guess I could have changed the tire for them, but at the time I didn’t see why I should when the guy was capable of doing it and didn’t want to do it because he didn’t want to get dirty. Maybe it was one of those Karma tests and I failed it this time.
You absolutely did the right thing, and they were clearly the assholes. I think you maintained your dignity and doing if for them would've futher entrenched their gross self-entitlement.
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Happy Belated Birthday Tony!! First time reader, the blog is great!!!
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Whether it's karmatically (is that even a word?) correct or not....I would have done the exact same thing. Him telling you he didn't want to get dirty was ridiculous.
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Makes me wonder if this ploy is used to rob people. All the same, good for you to try to teach them to fish... or at least change a flat.
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I'll change a tire for a girl, but not for a guy who's unwilling to try to figure it out.
Call fucking AAA, buddy. They'll do it for ya.
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You are frickin hilarious man. It was probably a set up anyway, or they might have been playing" let's run over the guy under the car" Anyway, great blog, you are too mcuh!
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well, even though i'm not a man, i can do most of those things you listed. i don't necessarily think of them as manly things, but more like mechanical things, and i love getting greasy and helping hubby work on stuff.
as far as how you handled the situation, you did great! that is exactly what i would've liked to do. sadly, i am a people pleaser (as in i feel the need for everybody to like me - well except for bill collectors) so i probably would have done the changing and given him pointers on how to do it himself. that was pretty lame of him to ask another guy to do it for him. he should def have been embarrassed!
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I'm sexist like that too. Doesn't that dude have any self-respect? Doesn't want to get dirty... you picked Jose as a name, you should have gone with Pusse.
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You totally did the right thing.
If you don't know how or want to do that sort of thing, get AAA, don't expect random strangers to just do stuff for you.
I don't know how to either, but then, I have AAA. I'd either do it myself, or call the number.
That goes for guys or girls, unless it's your ploy for picking someone up.
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@Ann - thanks, at first I felt I was doing the right thing but then I started doubting myself and felt like I should have helped them, but the more I thought about I agree with you. It just surprises me that people can actually expect someone to do something like that just because they don’t want to get dirty.
@Jen - thanks for the birthday wishes. Welcome to my blog, I hope you continue to visit. To be honest with you I felt like he thought he was better than me asking me to do something so he wouldn’t get dirty.
@Chris - afterwards, different things went through my head and being robbed was one of them, but when it was actually happening I didn’t think that at all. I would have changed it if he had been unable to do it physically, but just because he didn’t want to get dirty wasn’t a reason for me to do it.
@Badass Geek - dude, you always know what to say or how to say it - you may end up being my hero too. I’m going to say that next time something like this happens “Call fucking AAA, buddy. They’ll do it for ya”
@Sandi - Thanks I’m glad you think I’m funny - life is funny. I guess this could have gone all sorts of ways, even turned bad. I’m glad you like the blog and hope you continue to visit.
@Nonna - Right? I would have been embarrassed to ask another man to help me fix a flat unless it was someone I knew and even then I would attempt to do it myself. I think that as I get older I feel like I have please people less and less. If you read some of my old posts and I’m sure some of the new ones yet to come you’ll see just how bad I am at fixing things. My sister is better at those sort of things than I am
@Jim - Pusse is a much better name - I choose Jose because my friend “Jose” sent me an IM while I was typing the post. I’ve been dressed up, which I hardly ever am, when I had to change a tire. I changed it trying not to get too dirty, but still ended up with black all over my pant legs - but the point is I changed the tire.
@Celes - Thanks. You never know, this is Vegas after all - maybe they were trying to pick me up to have a threesome to Elvis singing “Viva Las Vegas”
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Great blog! I agree ... call AAA!
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I'm glad you didn't help them... they're buttholes! This is a prime example of the sense of entitlement that plagues young'uns these days. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go put in my teeth and drink my metamucil.
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Mate, you need to stop walking around with that Jedi gear on. Everyone will think you can change a tire/rescue their cat from a tree/crush an evil empire when you walk into town.
I think you're asking for it myself . . .! x
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What a terrific story. I can rebuild a carburetor, I can change a tire, I can change my own oil, I can rebuild an engine, and possibly from scraps at the auto graveyard. I can say this for all of that, mostly you just get dirty and nicked up.
My brother had a flat tire once, he's competent enough to change a tire, but the car was old and no matter how strong the boy was (big strapping football hero type) he couldn't get that tire off the car. He called me, I went to pick him up, I took the tire iron and bashed it against the rim of the tire. The tire wobbled right off. We put the new tire on, my brother was pissed and embaressed, and I went on my merry way.
bright blessings.
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@MaryAnn - thanks. It's best to just call them.
@Dory - Thanks for visiting my blog. It still blows my mind that a guy would ask another guy to help him change a tire just so he doesn't get dirty - youth really is wasted on the young
@Tara - Maybe I'll dye the Jedi gear black and change to a red lightsaber, then people will not ask me to help because they'll think I'm from the Darkside.
@SweatPeaSurry - Thank you for visiting my blog - my sister is the same way, she can take apart and rebuild just about anything, if she doesn't know how, she'll still go at it as if she did and in the end will usually get it right. That's funny about your brother. I'd probably have messed with him about it for a while. Take care and hope to see more of you on here
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