girls can change tires

so both lisa and i are relatively intelligent people. we like to think we are good at problem solving too. generally speaking, i think we are and that we also work well as a team. this theory was tested and found to be true en route to take the girls to the airport on saturday evening.

the flight was due to take off shortly after 9pm. so we decided to be conservative and leave the house around 5, that would give us plenty of time to drive the 70-ish miles to minneapolis/st.paul international airport. off we went, sulking and unhappy to be sending the girls off.

we were about 30 miles from home when the sun came out and lisa asked for her sunglasses, so i got them ready and she was swapping into them. as she did, she was also changing lanes and hit a HUGELY, ENORMOUS hole in the road. it was a big square piece of road that appeared to just be gone. as she blazed over it at 70 mph it made quite a loud noise and all of us were wondering what that kind of a hole was doing on a highway. we drove on a few more miles and all of a sudden lisa said, 'what does it feel like when you have a flat tire?'

'pull over', i said. i jumped out and looked at the front driver's side tire, it looked fine. i glanced to the rear and said, 'it's completely flat'. everyone jumped out and started saying oh no and what are we gonna do and shit and great. i said, 'well, let's hustle up and change it'. i hadn't changed a tire since i was about 16 and dad had me rotate the tires on the car so i could learn how to do it. (thanks, dad) for some reason, i wasn't even worried about it. i started loosening the lug nuts as the other girls started pulling the cover off the spare and looking for the jack. the panic set in a bit when we found there actually was no jack in the car. (thanks, people who we bought the crv from.... great time for us to realize you sold us a car without the factory issued items).

anyway, luckily a nice guy stopped. he was perhaps the most non-mechanically inclined man i have ever met, but very nice. he liked tattoos and was looking at all of ours and chatting with clare about the UK. he let us use his jack. we got it lined up and lisa started jacking the car up. when she got to the end of the jack, we found it wasn't tall enough since he was driving a very low-riding sedan. we might have put two and two together before we started. 'shit' someone said.

since we were short on time, we needed to sort this out right now. so i said, 'we need a brick or something'. i jumped the ditch and climbed up to the farmer's field we were next to. i could see what i thought looked like a big rock. i ran over and got it and tossed it back to the girls. then went back to look for something flatter. that was the only rock in any direction on the field for as far as i could see. (thank you, universe).

i climbed back down to see the girls were trying to get the jack position on the rock. clare decided we should use the spare cover to lay over the rock to prevent slipping. i decided lisa should get her head from under the car and we should get ruby out too just in case the jack slipped. luckily it didn't and we were able to get it all changed and sorted.

unfortunately, the spare tire was very low on air. so we coaxed it up to the next turn off and found air, got the pressure up and headed off. the girls weren't late, but our good-bye was cut short. probably a good thing since we were all a bunch of puddles.

anyway, lessons learned:
1. when you buy a car from a private party, be sure there is a jack.
2. have your spare tired checked and be sure it is inflated to the proper psi.
3. don't buy tires from sam's as they are idiots and put the wrong size tires on the car, they also don't match the size of the spare to the said new tires.
4. leave early for the airport, something will always happen.
5. consider looking for the air compressor you bought some years ago and put it in the back of the cr-v, just in case.