Tire-Changing 101

"Walk with a purpose" I told myself as I approached my parents' car, pony-tail in place and in a skirt, to change the Landcruiser’s flat tire in front of an audience of 5 male Toyota car sales attendants.  I was home during the summer break after my first year of veterinary school.  Tire changing.  Ladies, we all need to know how to do this one.  I had managed to run over a nail in the "under construction" library parking lot 4 hours prior to this incident.  Of course I'd done at first what any daughter would have done, called home.  Nobody answered.  So I called my dad at work.  "Ummm, dad, I'm at the library and the tire is flat."  Yes, I'd once again tested fate and driven through the parking lot construction site zone loaded with nails, as a short-cut to the library.  "No, I have NO IDEA why it went flat, but I've asked 2 other guys here and they can't figure out how to unlock the spare".  "Where's your mother (p.37, "How-To-Raise-A-Child" book)."  "I can't get ahold of her.  I think she's still at school teaching art-docent classes."  "Alright, I'll drive home 2 hours from work and come change it."  Feeling extremely guilty about making my dad quit his work-day early to fix my easily avoidable blunder, I said, "No dad.  Actually one of the guys just offered to put some air in the tire so I can drive it down the road to the dealership".  Phew thank God for that.  Surely the dealership chivalrous boys would know how to change my tire.  "Okay, but call me back if that doesn't work and keep trying your mom".  Thirty minutes later I'm batting my eyes at the dealership sales attendant explaining that no, I wasn't looking to purchase a new car today, but could he help me change my flat tire please?  "Sure lady, pull it around back, and I'll change it for $90."  Excuse me?  Where's that knight in shining armor?  I pulled the car around back to try my eyelash batting (and even a little hair twirling) at a new group of boys.  Same story, "Absolutely Miss...for $90."  I was born in the wrong era.  Where is my Pride and Prejudice Mr. Darcy?  What happened to laying your jacket over the puddles for the little lady to cross over?  "Sure lady, for $90."  Well now I'm pissed I'm not being carried across those puddles.  It's the same reason I stand at my side of the car waiting for my door to be opened on a date as my "date" unlocks HIS door first.  Strike one.  Yes, I am an independent salary earning female, but in a relationship, I want to play second fiddle…from my pedestal.  They're easy to train though.  And if they're un-trainable, it's time to move on.

"Well, then I guess I'll just change it myself because I don't have $90."  I pulled the car around to the back, close enough to the work-stations in a last dying effort to have my John Waynes rescue me, approach the 5 sales attendants, and ask if it’s alright to just temporarily use their parking space for the tire-changing.  "Yeah, that's fine Lady, we're slow today."  Walk with a purpose.  I headed back to my parents car to change this huge tire, completely in shock that not one single boy has pulled out his shiny sword to spear the fire-breathing, flat-tire dragon.  I told myself I just needed to put my "big-girl panties" on and get this done.  I'd never changed a tire before and was scared to death.  My dad always did that one as well as fill up my car with gas and get those mysterious little blinky warning lights on my dashboard taken care of.  But after all, at the time I was still in veterinary school and knew every insertion and Latin name of every muscle in the dog's body.  Tire changing should be a piece of cake.  Should be.  I looked at the tire and thought, huh, where's the instruction manual?  Now ladies, we have one advantage (well now honestly we have MANY advantages) over the male species, but one of the biggest ones is that we're not afraid to follow the instruction manual...or to ask for directions or to express our emotions or to multi-task or to....I'm digressing.  I located the instruction manual in the glove compartment, pulled it out, laid it on the ground, located the tool kit in the back trunk, spread out each and every tool on the cement, and got to work reading.  Of course I probably didn't need to pull out and display EVERY tool in a complete rainbow semi-circle on the ground, but I was going to make this a HUGE scene for my John Waynes.  I found the jack, put it in place, got my "take the lug-nuts off" tool thing ready, and proceeded to get those lug-nuts off smoothly.  Not going anywhere.  Apparently this tire had a lock on it, the same thing the boys back at the library were saying.  "Dad, so I'm at the dealership and the tire's locked.  Is there some special key for this Toyota tire?"  "Well, I don't know why it's locked.  I'm coming home."  "No!!  Please don't drive home dad.  I'll figure it out.  Dad, I have to go, I think that's mom beeping in." "Mom, did you get my messages?  I'm at the car dealership trying to change the flat tire, but it's like it's locked or something.  Is there a key to unlock the tire to be able to change it?"  "Oh yeah, it's in the glove compartment.  We used it when your father and I changed the last flat tire in Florida.  Do you need my help up there?"  Supermom to the rescue.  "Oh great, yep, it's there in the glove compartment, thanks so much mom.  Nope, I got it under control."  It's a good thing my parents are married.  Each one of them has vital information stored in their brain that if they didn't work together, the family would be even more dysfunctional than it already is.  Tire-unlocked and now I'm ready.  I proceed to jack up the car, unscrew the lug-nuts, take off the wheel cover, pull off the old tire, and lay it on the ground, when my John Waynes come to rescue me.  "You weren't kidding about changing this tire yourself were you Lady?"  "No, I wasn't".  "Well, do you need any help lifting that spare?" "No, thank you"...as I bent over in my skirt to pick up the spare and swing in on the wheel base in front of my 5 chivalrous John Waynes.  Tire changing 101.  It's perfectly okay to be an eye-lash batting, hair-twirling, skirt-wearing, instruction manual reading, tire changer.  It's something we all need to know how to do because let's face it; the John Waynes nowadays are few and far between.