Tiring

Have you ever had a task to fulfill that should be really simple but instead was so complex that you just wished you could quit and walk away...except that you can't, because you were still miles and miles from home?

The other day, I was talking with Rish on the phone as I was driving home. It had been raining all day, but the rain was gone, and the only times I used my windshield wipers was to clean the water that cars in front of me had kicked up onto my windows. At one point, I hit a spot where there was a decent amount of standing water on the freeway. There was a big splashing sound and the car yanked a little to the left, but I held fast to the wheel, and kept it straight.

Turned out there was more to worry about than just getting in an accident. All of a sudden, my car was thumping. Something was wrong.

"Uh oh," I said to Rish, "I think I might have a flat tire."

"Oh man, well, I guess I'll hang up on you and leave you alone, and let you take care of that then," he said, and was gone in a flash.

I happened to be right next to a freeway exit, so I steered over to it and pulled off onto the side road. It was a lonely empty side road, with only one spot to pull off on, the entry driveway for a construction equipment rental lot. The good thing was that it was a very big lane with plenty of space for me to take care of the tire.

I got out and took a look at it, yup it sure was flat. It was over and done with. There was no repairing this thing.

Okay, well, this wasn't the first time I'd changed a tire. So, I needed to get to work...except that it was the first time I'd changed a tire on this car. I'd never thought to look for the jack or the lug wrench. In fact, I had no idea where the spare was. This was my first truck. The tire was obviously not in the trunk, because there was no trunk. I was pretty sure it was secured to the bottom of the bed, but I'd never even checked to see. Did I have a spare? I supposed that would be a good place to start.

The ground was all wet, so I got out my coat and put it on so I could climb under the bed and check for the spare. After getting a little soggy, I was able to confirm that we did indeed have a spare. What's next?

Well, I thought it might be a good idea to text my wife and let her know that I had a flat tire so that she didn't worry, but also so that she could call someone if I never made it home. Her first response was to ask if I had a spare. She didn't know either, so I wasn't alone...and the truck had been her idea. She wanted something to haul around supplies for all her home renovations she loved to do.

She told me of our roadside assistance number and I told her that I had a spare, but didn't know where anything in the truck was. In my head, I scoffed at the idea of roadside assistance. I didn't need that. Maybe I should have considered it, but I didn't. I knew how to change a tire, I just needed to find the necessary implements to get the job done.

I went searching for the jack, and found it behind the seat, secured by a bar that held it in place. I tried pulling it out, but found that it was in there fast. I looked for a clasp or a hook or a button that would release it and found nothing. At last, I gave up and searched YouTube for a video on how to get the jack out of a Nissan Frontier. I found this video, which went on for more than two minutes, but all it showed me was where the jack was...which I'd already discovered on my own. It never got to the point where the guy pulled the jack out to use it.

Gah! My phone was very low on power too, and I'd wasted possibly half of my remaining 3% battery power watching a useless video. I searched again, and finally discovered the trick.

Duh! It should have been obvious, but I didn't consider that altering the jack was the way to get it out. I thought I needed to adjust the bar that was holding it in place.

Now I had me a jack. While trying to figure out how to get the jack out, I found the lug wrench, and the bar used to pump the jack up. Now that I had that, I could do something...except I didn't have all I needed yet. I still had to get me a spare tire. It was under the bed, but how did I get it off? I went to look on YouTube again. I was running low on battery, but I hoped it would last through this video.

I got far enough to see how to lower the tire, but my phone died before I could see the rest. I had to plug the phone in and run the car engine for a while to charge it up enough that I could watch some more instructional videos that could fill me in on all the tricks involved in changing a tire on my car.

I missed the old days when things were simple enough that I could just do it without any special training or tips and without a pocket computer that could find instructional videos for me.

While I waited, I used the jack handle in the slot at the back of the car to lower the tire down. I tried to pull it out, but it was still stuck fast to the chain. How was I supposed to get the chain off? It seemed like it would need a pretty secure fastening to make sure the tire didn't just fall off on the road while I was out driving around. I crawled around on the wet street trying to figure it out, and then finally gave up and went back to see if my phone had charged enough.

When I finally saw the trick to get the tire down, I couldn't believe how easy it was. I should have been able to figure it out on my own, but I think that my problem was that I hand't lowered the chain enough to make the simple trick of turning the peg sideways to become apparent.

Okay, I was really in business here. I had a tire, a jack, and a lug wrench, so I went to work. I got five of the six lug nuts off, but encountered a problem with the last one. The wrench couldn't attach to it. There was something different about it. I realized that I had what they call a lock nut on my tire. It is a nut specially designed to foil people who might just steal all your wheels while you were inside a store shopping or something.

How did I get that off? crap, I had no idea. Well, my phone was back in service...for the time being, it had only charged a couple of percentage points...so I searched how to remove lock nuts. I didn't even have to watch a video for this one. Once I saw this thumbnail on the google search I did, I realized what I needed.

Oh, crap, I'd seen this before. you have to have a special attachment to get the lock nuts off. I remember once when I got a tire worked on at Walmart, and then got back in the car and found the socket in my cupholder. I went in with it and told the guys they'd left one of their tools in my car.

"No," he said, "That's not ours, that's yours. That is the special locknut remover. You'll need it again later."

Well, he sure was right about that. I went to where I'd stored it, attached it to my lug wrench, and was finally able to get that last nut off, and remove the tire. I quickly swapped the spare out for the blown tire, and had my truck on four sound wheels again.

Now I knew all the tricks. I was able to get all six lug nuts on because I had the special socket. I was able to get the blown tire snug up against the bed of the truck by reversing the process of getting it down. I was able to get the jack back in place, because I knew how to tighten it back in. It was all so easy once I knew what I was doing.

It took me forever to figure it all out and get the tire changed...about an hour to an hour and a half, I think. Right as I was tightening up all the lug nuts, my wife called.

"Are you still changing your tire?" she asked.

I started telling her about the ordeal, but before I even got very far, my phone ran out of power again and died. For all she knew, a man with a hook for a hand had come up behind me and ripped my throat out.

Once I had everything all sealed up, I got back in the car and headed the rest of the way home. When my phone charged enough to wake back up, I texted my wife to let her know I was okay, and on my way home now.

Funny thing is that I noticed that she had texted me a video made by Nissan themselves that had the answer to most of the questions I had during the process. 

I don't know when that text came in, but I never saw it. Maybe it came while the phone was dead and needed to charge. Too bad I didn't see it when it could have helped. But then again, of course I didn't. It wasn't that kind of a night for me.

It wasn't terrible, though. I mean it had rained all day, but it wasn't raining while I was flailing around trying to figure out how to change the tire. It could have been horrible. In fact, the rain held off until pretty much the moment I finished. As I was getting into the car to leave, the rain began anew.

I have to say, though, that next time a tire blows, I'll be ready. I'll be a freaking expert. Not that I want to have to deal with it again, but if I have to, I'm all set.