GatewayRedbirds.com

So I leave work at about 5:45, have the car warmed up and hit the road. It's 5 below. As I'm about one mile out of town, I have to pass a haygrinder (you can google these). I get around him, and hear a pop. I immediately think tire, but I'm still driving smoothly. I start to hear some strange noises, like plastic melting, and decide to slow down. Then the car starts handling bad. So I know I've got a problem. I pull over and discover that the right front tire is shot.

So I pull off on a gravel road, and go to the trunk. I know where the spare is, the guy showed it to us when we bought it. I get that out, and then start looking for the jack. Uh-oh, where in the hell is that? He never mentioned that (of course I could have been 'blah blah blah yeah yeah yeah'). Not good to not know where stuff is in the dark. Oh, wait, there is something resembling a tool kit, behind some rubber straps. I try and try to loosen the straps to no avail. After about five minutes, I finally discover the secret...they are somewhat like those yellow gargbage bag ties, if you know what I'm talking about. At this point, I decide to call my wife. No cell service. I'm within 200 yards of a friggin cell tower and no service?

Now I'm cold.

I take out the tool kit, and find the jack. What the hell? I've never seen a jack like this. But hey, I'm a man's man, I can jack up a car. So I put it slightly ahead of the front wheel on something that looks stable. By the way, I'm using one of those crappy little wind up lights that shuts off as soon as you stop winding it. Good investment! I finally discover that this jack operates in no way that I have ever seen a jack operate before. What? So I look on it, and there is a label with some instructions. But, like most men, I am genetically programmed to not be able to understand instructions (sometimes I swear that this is why we have women around), I grunt and walk to see if our owner's manual has instructions. I have to read the owner's manual to change a freakin' tire.

This is where I am loathe to continue, but feel I must.

I finally find the four pages in the seven volume encyclopia we call an owner's manual on how to change the tire. It tells me to look for one of the four spots on the car where you can use this jack. I find the areas, but the book says that there is a little indicator, but I look and look and find nothing. It is also here that my faith in the friendliness of the average South Dakotan is shattered. A guy turns off the highway in a pickup truck, slowly drives around me, stops to see what is happening, and then just ambles off. Dammit.

Now I'm really cold.

Finally I say f-it and just take a stab at it. I try to bring the jack up, but I get one-half turn, and the other turn hits the snow and ice. What the? So I try this for a couple of minutes, then realize that there is a system. I'm no dummy. I get the car off the ground and make for the lug wrench. Cool. I take off four of the five lugs, which was and act of congress in itself, they were tight. The last one doesn't work. It just slips. What the hell? Oh, the book tells me it is an anti-theft device. Great. No one can steal my tire. Now I need to go to the tool kit and find the adapter. I find nothing. Of course it could have dropped beside the car. I look for two minutes and swear that I'm going to die out here. I look in my car's emergency tool kit, and somehow it is in there. In my frozenness, I must have put it there for safe keeping. Short term memory loss is a [expletive]. So I finally get the wheel off, and wheel out the replacement. I swear to you, getting this bastard on took 15 minutes, and I am not lying. My hands were freezing, my knees were freezing, and I could not get this damn thing on. See, when I replaced every other tire in my life, there were bolts sticking out that you just kind of have to line up, and throw the tire on. Not so fast, my friends. This is just the opposite. You hold up the tire, line up the holes, and screw in a bolt. Stop and ponder the level of difficulty involved here, when you are trying to hold up a tire, line up the holes, screw in a bolt, and wind up a piece of crap flashlight with two hands so you can see what in the hell is going on.

Now I'm friggin' freezing.

By some miracle of miracles, and with my knee under the tire to support it, and my head pushing against the top of the tire so I don't lose the damn thing, I get one bolt in. It is pretty much gravy from here. I probably did the rest as fast as any Nascar crew.

Anyway, the story you have just read is true, only that the names have been changed to protect the innocent.

On the plus side you have the makings of a hit country song. "Coldest day of the year, Leroy gets a fat tire." That line is gold!

This thread, and the great men and women who brave the hostile elements to fill out 1040 forms for their fellow citizens--this is why I used to have the state of South Dakota as my signature.

Until I replaced it with a syringe.

sighyoung wrote:This thread, and the great men and women who brave the hostile elements to fill out 1040 forms for their fellow citizens--this is why I used to have the state of South Dakota as my signature.

Until I replaced it with a syringe.

Great country song...I may work on that tonight.

And that SD signature killed me, even though I never said so.

But your battery is still working, right?

maddash wrote:But your battery is still working, right?

Different car, but yes, we were cranking out the hits during the ordeal.

This reminds me of the time last year there was a terrible freezing rain/6 or so inches of snow storm here in STL(yes I know 6 inches is next to nothing but that's not what I'm complaining about, hear me out). The trouble wasn't the snow, the trouble was the fact that it had rained most of the day before it turned freezing, causing my car doors to freeze shut at about 6:00 PM when I left work, leaving me completely unable to open my door and leading me to break off my car door handle. I had to fill a twenty gallon trash bucket full of hot water just to thaw out my car door to open it and get home.

The worst things with cars always happen when the weather is at it's worst, it always seems. That sucks that that happened, Leroy. But hey, it builds character.