I Paid a Guy

It pains me to admit it, but I did. I paid a guy.

I'm all for DIY, and I think it's important for people to have a breadth of basic skills in their toolbox, but sometimes it's better to weigh all the options and just give someone money to do it for you. The job is often better and faster, and your pocketbook is not even that much lighter. Plus, while the guy (or gal) is busy doing your bidding, you can do something else like read or write or just daydream about what you would do if you won the lottery.

Here's the situation: I was out in a wealthy suburb having coffee and brilliant conversation with a dear friend, and when I arrived in the parking garage, my car had a flat tire.* To be fair, my car had told me that it was having issues with "tire pressures," but I was driving at the time as well as running late, so by the time I parked, I had forgotten. If my car were Kitt from Night Rider, it might have told me in a soothing British voice, and perhaps I would have listened, but those are the breaks.

There I stood. Unsure what to do. Thinking, "I should call Pete, and he will tell me what to do."

Then the conversation in my head went something like this:
"What do you mean, call your husband, you dumb broad? You have been alone plenty of time in your life and had to take care of things all by yourself, including in Wyoming and in the parking lot of a bar in Hopkins, Minnesota.** What would you do if you did not have someone?"

I called Pete. Sometimes I don't listen.

He said, "Oh yeah, I got that message last night, and I forgot."

(See: British voice, calmly but firmly telling us what to do and not to smack our partners. Repeatedly.)

Pete advised me to drive it to the nearest service station and have them take care of it because the one time he had a flat tire on the car, he found that the jack sucked total balls, and he didn't want me using it. I was now resisting the idea of girling out and having a dude take care of it, so I got out the jack and the spare tire and took the bolt caps off. I tried to get the jack to work or even look like the diagram and the instructions in the owner's manual, but it just did not make sense to me.

I put everything back where it belonged and drove to the nearest service station, where a guy jacked it up, found the screw, and patched the sucker in about six minutes. I paid the guy $24, and went on my merry way.

*Sorry to disappoint, dear reader, but would you really want to read a post about car repairs?
**Both places where I have changed tires.