Today was going smooth. Dare I say, almost perfect. The kind of day I would love to post about, that makes me look like a freaking rock star. Alas, those days never actually happen, they are but fleeting moments before the Lord Himself smacks you upside the head and says “neigh neigh my child, this isn’t about YOU”.
So anyway, we have a smooth morning, I get my run in, the girls are decently patient in the morning during breakfast, homeschool goes off without any major standoffs about handwriting and then my friend called as we were heading out the door for preK pick up. I agreed to pick up her daughter (we will call her 2.5 because she’s 2’s best friend) because of logistic issues today. I said sure, we are going to the library after lunch.
This is not something I would normally do. See where 1 and 1.5 are relatively quiet obedient kids, 2 and 2.5 are determined, persistently vocal occasionally feral kids. But this morning was just so peaceful I figured I had the patience to do the library.
They did GREAT! I mean lunch wasn't a fight, everyone ate and earned a cookie. The ride to the library was peaceful, the library itself was... I mean a library with five kids is a lot. But they all put a finger on their lips and the other hand on their hips and walked quickly and quietly through the building. 2 and 2.5 did break out into a game of "spies" despite my several whisper yell reminders that we were in a library. At one point Rae did try to unalive herself by dancing on the table top but it wasn't a far enough fall to hurt her, definitely not to kill her either. Aside from 2 and 2.5 trying to bath in hand sanitizer (thank you Covid for allllllll of the opportunities to do such a thing, literally everywhere you turn, everywhere you go, sanitizer is there) the library was even largely uneventful. I even heard the other two moms in the kids section whispering about how they want to "use that trick" and how "great those kids are" as we walked out. Like, listen if you ever want to make a moms day, just let her catch you whispering about how great of a mom she is, or how well behaved her kids are.
So I walk out of that library feeling like I could part the daggum seas of disobedience and change the tides of tantrums! We stopped and played at the park while we waited for 2.5's dad to come pick her up. I kept waiting for the ball to drop, surely days like this don't happen, and IF we were going to have one of these ONE IN A MILLION kind of obedient days I was not about to waste it on just a library trip, we needed to go to dinner outside of the home! I needed to play the lottery!
It was on the drive home, things got dicey. They all started to bicker which I mean honestly, is so normal that silence is really abnormal at this point. It is definitely a cause for worry in our house. We got to about 3 miles from my house (I type that like I don't know the exact distance, I have ran it several times. It was 3.5 miles from my house) and I heard a POP. I was on the phone (with my headphones so don't come after me okay) and I just thought, well maybe we ran over something. The van wasn't pulling left or right, nothing was shaking and nothing had fallen off the van. My heart started to race though because after half a mile the tire pressure indicator came on. A check engine light? I woulda prayed over that and drove home. But that tire pressure light coming on in the middle of a drive? Eeeeeeeh I thought for a brief moment, hey maybe I can milk it home. Nope. Nada. I found myself pulled over next to a trailer park calling my dad because well my husband can't have his phone in his work building.
The conversation went as follows "Hey dad, um while we are on the topic of me needing to learn how to adult, amongst things like learning how to pay my mortgage, we need to add being able to locate my spare tire". He laughed and said its in the owners manual but also its between my two front tires under the van. This was great information because prior to that call I had opened up the back of the van and stupidly looked at the space where the spare tire was in the Jeep Grand Cherokee my husband drove all through college. I knew the tire wasn't there, having loaded lots and lots of groceries right where a tire would be but that didn't stop my body from checking just to be sure.
So I continue talking to my dad "Oh an owners manual, hey I have one of those! Great, now the tools I will need for this, is that something that you know I should've had packed in a bag this whole time or does that come with the spare tire"
Again he laughed and said "it's in the trunk either in the left or right side panel, you can't miss it" little did he know you can in fact miss it because I already had.
"Alright dad, thanks! I've got this!" I said with gumption that I almost believed and then I figured someone had to do this and my husband wasn't coming to my rescue. I pulled out the jack and some other thing in a black bag that looked important and then climbed back into the car. I put the hazard lights on (MISTAKE) and started reading the owners manual. It seemed simple enough. I pulled out the thing that looked important which happened to be a T shaped bolt unscrewer thing. I put it together then set it aside.
As I was flipping through the pages thinking, I can do this, its not a big deal, the girls in the back of the van peppered me with hundreds of questions "why are we stopped", "is this a park", "why did we get a flat tire", "do we have another tire", "did you do this", "are we going home", and the one that really irritated me "is dad coming to fix it". I just kept reading, buying time, and also making sure I was about to do this right because this would be an expensive "hey honey, so I thought I could do it but the axle of the van is bent now soooooo".
In the middle of reading and confidence building, my mother calls "don't you have road side assistance"
"Mom, I can do this! It will be faster for me to just do it! But I can't do it if I am on the daggum phone!" I hung up and sighed. It was time. Then a sheriff pulled up.
"Everything okay?"
"I am literally reading the owners manual to change this tire. Yes I am fine"
He had the audacity to laugh at loud at me! He didn't just smirk, he didn't even try to disguise it in a cough, nothing, just a bold faced laugh. He said "I am responding to another call but I will come back and check on you".
Okay sir, but I wont be here. I promised myself that. So I lowered down the spare tire, pulled it out from under the van and then shoved the holder back together and pushed it under the van once more. I made a mental note to raise it back up because that would be a real travesty to change the tire correctly only to break the van from something so stupid as that. I put the parking brake on, turned the movie on for the kids and got out of the van. Then froze. I vaguely remembered by mother telling a horror story about someone jacking a vehicle up in the wrong spot and it fell while they were under it working. On some level I knew this was ludicrous because I wasn't actually going to be under the van at all, but again with the, wouldn't that me an awful thing to have to tell my husband "well I got the spare tire out, I got the jack and the T unscrewer thing out, but I just broke the left side of the van, Just the cosmetic portion though". So I stood there staring at the jack, the tools and the flat tire. Two men drove by and stopped to ask if I needed help, to which I reassured them "no I've got it, just letting my husband know we are okay" I smiled and waved them on. I was googling, a bit frantically mind you, where the jack goes.
I called my dad back, video chatting him, with the phone under the van in hopes he would be able to make out where this jack point was that the owner manual mentioned. He answered the video call with audio only. Grrrreat. He said "there should be a jack point right in front of the tire. Just look you'll see it"
"that is what I am saying, I know the jack goes here in this general vicinity but like on the frame, or this grey part that seems sturdy" cue the images of the van falling on my toes or something crazy.
"its in the owners manual"
"yeah, it says 'place the jack in the jack position' but where is that? the picture does shows it from a side view not what it looks like under the van! I'll google it I've got this"
My mom from the background "loosen the lug nuts before she puts the jack up"
"yeah loosen the lug nuts before you put the jack up" my Dad added to appease mom. This was information I needed to hear but just said "yeah yeah" as if I already knew it. Thank you mother for assuming I am every bit of the idiot I am.
So I got off the phone. Reread the manual, still not convinced I wasn't going to do this wrong, and then stood there staring at the jack. Eventually I told the girls to get out of the van and come stand by me. Checked the manual again, maybe I missed a graphic. I didn't miss a graphic. Those manuals are not idiot proof incase you were wondering. I checked youtube briefly before finally deciding the least I could do was loosen the lug nuts and maybe just maybe the place to put the jack would pop into my head.
While loosing them three more people stopped to see if I needed help. Three more men. The ladies all just drove right on by, probably thinking "I need to brush up on what the heck I would do if that was me" or "we should make the road side assistance payment so that doesn't happen to us". I waved each person on reassuring them with a smile "oh yeah we've got this! Thanks!"
We didn't "got this". We "got" about 80% of it but that crucial 20% of where the heck to put the jack was sort of the lynchpin of the operation. Finally when another gentlemen came to a stop and said "need any help" I swallowed my pride.
"Can you just show me where to put the jack?" He looked at me in utter disbelief. Like I was speaking in a different language. I thought to myself, great I finally accept help and its the one guy that offered without actually meaning to help, he doesn't even know where to put the jack! So I said it again "I know how to do everything else, I just don't know where to put the jack you know? So the van wont fall or I wont damage it somehow". He cracked a smile but didn't laugh, bless his heart. And he just slid the jack right under the van, just in front of the tire. Just where my dad said it would be. Just where the manual said it would be. And right about where I would've put it. He went to reach for the thing you use to loosen the lug nuts, I sort of proudly said "oh they are loose already. I did that part, I just didn't know where to put the jack".
I stared in disbelief. He reached over and checked to see if the lug nuts were loose. I suppose me stammering about knowing what I was doing except where to put the jack didn't give him a vote of confidence in my knowledge of car vocabulary or changing a tire. Anyway, he pushed the jack under the van and started to raise it up.
I could've done that! Why was I so hung up on the "jack spot". I think I was expecting like a clear spot, a red piece of something, a notch, you know a "put jack here" indicator. This guy just put it under there and went to raising. He got it up high enough and turned to grab the thing to take the lug nuts off. I proudly said "no no I've got it! I've taken up enough of your time!"
He asked, more skeptically then I felt was needed, if I was sure. Then he said he would be by right after he picked up his girlfriend to check on me. To which I responded (in my head only) over my dead body will we still be on the side of this road with these "LOOK AT ME IM AN IDIOT THAT CAN'T FIND WHERE TO PUT THE JACK" lights blinking, while my four kids sit staring at me next to the van and I google things nervously.
He left. I took the tire off, and went to put the spare on. But then I panicked a little, because what if I put the spare on backward and it rubbed the rotor or somehow bent it or the brakes wouldn't work because the tire was on backward. So I called my father in law, mainly because I thought if I admitted to my dad that I wasn't sure which way the spare tire went on, he would die of laughter and my mom of a coronary brought on by stress. My father in law looked at the screen like he didn't hear me right and said "yeah, that's how it goes on" then for good measure he added "now tighten those lug nuts on in a star pattern. And just put them all on loosely before you really tighten them down".
Shit. That's a thing? Oh I would've messed THAT up for sure. "Oh yeah yeah, I got it. Thanks! Just another day in paradise! I'll let you know when we get home". I hung up, licked my wounds and finished the job as 2 took pictures and 3 fought her over the phone while doing her potty dance. 1 sat quietly holding 4 and I just shook my head because the Lord sure does know how to knock you off the "I am so awesome look how under control I have this day" pedestal.
We made it home. I am not driving anywhere tomorrow.
In closing
I am going to make my kids physically change a tire when they are older. So they learn by doing and aren't looking like an idiot too prideful to ask for help but also not confident enough to actually do the job.
Never make the mistake of thinking you're going to have a perfect game kind of day.
Praise the Lord even in the mundane, even on the side of the road when you're to prideful to ask for help because He is faithful and He continued to send help, after help, after help, after help, until finally I admitted I needed it.
Hazard lights really do scream "I'm adulting here" in the most public way possible.
I did change that tire and Dad did not come fix it. Just Papa (both of them) and only via phone so does that really count? I basically did it myself so there. My girls saw that and I am glad they did.
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