02 May 2005

Monday, Monday

Mondays are always difficult, whether you're restarting your sleep schedule to normal from the weekend (which was not normal), or just dealing with the fact that there's another five days lying between yourself and irresponsibility. This one started out well, when I made it out twenty minutes early and pulled my car out of the spot.

And then realized the tire was flat (an age-old problem immortalized in cinema and jokes).

After taking a moment to thank the person who'd slashed my tire at school the year before I got down to work -- but it occurred to me that some people might not have the benefit of knowing exactly what to do in such a situation. I therefore compiled a guide.



How To Change A Tire.


1) Park the car, and spend a few minutes rooting through all the crap in your trunk until you can locate the donut.

2) Place the donut on the ground near the tire. Now look for the jack. Mine comes in two pieces, conveniently labeled below for the purposes of this 'how to' segment.


3) Look for a good place to position the jack. You could reference your owner's manual, or just simply poke around down there til you find a spot that looks sturdy. Take a moment to marvel at all the rust that's built up under your car after the protective coat was scraped away when you bottomed out in the snow a winter or two ago.

4) Fit the wrench into the jack and rotate to elevate the jack just enough to secure it. At this point, you should remember that it's easiest to remove the hubcap and loosen the nuts while the tire still has the weight of the car on it, and stop.

5) Using the wrench, loosen the hubcap bolt-cover-things. Remember, lefty loosey, righty tighty!

6) Pry the hubcap off.

7) Loosen the bolts holding the tire in place. You will never be able to do this by hand. Instead, position the wrench so the handle is parallel to the ground. Jump on the handle. Jump again. Wait for the cheap jack wrench to break and lodge in your flesh, since you just had to wear those heeled sandals today. Curse at it. Move to the next one. Repeat for each nut until each is loosened just a little bit.

8) Thank the neighbor who's stopped for offering to help, but tell him you're ok. Not because you're a woman and can do this on your own, but because you accomplished the hardest part two-point-four seconds before he walked over to help, which was loosening the nuts.

9) Jack the car up until the tire is just off the ground. At this point, loosen the rest of the nuts and put them in a place where they won't roll away.

10) Chase down the nut that rolled away. It's right over there.

11) Remove the tire. Toss it in your trunk, leave it in your garage, it doesn't matter. Just be sure to get dirt, rust, and grease stains on your hands and clothing at some point during the process.

12) Put the donut on and tighten the nuts by hand. Lower the car, and once it's on the ground, repeat the jumping process to make sure they're really on. Remove the jack and throw it in your trunk.

13) Realize your donut is flat also.



Happy Monday! :)

1 comment:

Matt S. said...

LOL, hysterical!