Monday, June 04, 2007

A bit more on do-it-yourself

This reminded me of something. Couple of years back, one of the open-mike nights I used to hit was usually run by a guy who was a speech teacher during the day. One night he was griping about the trip to a contest last weekend. Two cars, he drove one and one of the students drove the other.

The second car got separated- due to traffic, he thought- so a ways down the road he pulled in to a station, parked where the car could be seen from the highway, and they sat down to get a coke and wait. About an hour later the other car showed up and parked. First question, as you'd expect, "What happened to you?"

"We had a flat."

"It took you an hour to change a flat?"

"No, it took a while before someone stopped to change it for us."

He was dumbfounded, along with most everyone else listening. Five in the car, three boys, and none of them knew how to change a tire or were willing to try. Most had the same background: if you, a guy from twelve or thirteen on, had confessed to having to wait by the road until someone could change a flat for you you'd have been laughed out of the room. Only an injury or medical condition would have exempted you from that. Where/when I learned to drive, most of the girls that age could change a tire if they had to(rural area, might be a while before someone comes by), they just didn't like to.

This is one of those things that's also a safety matter. Weather might make it a bad idea to just sit a while hoping for assistance, and some people who stop might not have 'offering assistance' in mind, especially if the one broken down is a woman(This used to drive me nuts with my first wife. She'd never let me show her how to change one: "Someone always stops to help me with a flat.").
Again, you might not enjoy something like changing a tire, but you should damn well know how.

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