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Thanks for noticing!

The other day we had pulled into the gym parking lot.  As Luke was hand-closing the sliding passenger door to our van (because the motor is worn out) he called out "Mom!  Come see!  This is important!"

Usually Luke knows the difference between important and unimportant, so I went over to see what he was talking about.  I'm sure I expected some sort of lizard or snake on the ground, but this was actually really important.   What Luke had noticed was a nail or something embedded in the side corner of the tire.  I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have noticed since I'm not on the passenger side of the car very often.  I probably would have driven half way to Durham before the tire blew out and there was a fiery wreck... Well, maybe not a wreck, but a lot of inconvenience.

I sent the kids into their gym lesson and  texted Michael.  He was already on his way to pick up the kids, since I had to be in Durham, and he suggested that I start taking off the tire so that we could move ahead more quickly and I could get to Durham.  As I often (falsely, it turns out) say to myself,  "No Problem, I have a PhD in Math!  Surely I can handle This Situation!"   I got out the manual, got out the tools, and started trying to figure things out.

A few minutes into this odyssey, a young man who was going to the gym pulled up in his big pickup next to me and noticed that I was attempting to change the tire.  "Ma'am, do you need some help?"  he asked.  Well, I always need help so I said yes.  He said he had never changed a tire, so after we found the place to put the jack using the manual he went inside to get his also youthful friend who was "better with cars."  His friend had never changed a tire, either.  But they were game to try, so we set the brake, jacked up the car a bit and started to work on removing the lug nuts.

For future reference, it is easier to remove the lug nuts if you have little or no weight on the tire.  Lift the wheel off the ground using the jack.  With most of the tire on the ground, neither of the buff young men were able to budge the nuts. They went in to lift some more weights.  Enter my hero. =)  Michael got the tire off reasonably quickly and then put the new one on. Yet again, age and experience trumps youth and enthusiasm.  I was able to tell the young men what we had been doing wrong---after all, perhaps some day they will drive out to rescue their wives from a flat tire.

(Edited to add: Michael says the technique has to do with how you hit the wrench to jerk the lug nuts free, and that you should actually do this while the vehicle is on the ground.  Shows what I know...)

As he was finishing up, someone from across the street who had noticed me jumping on the wrench to remove the tire stopped by to make sure we were all right, which was kind.  Michael drove the van home so I didn't have to drive it on the highway.  And we get a new tire and didn't have a fiery wreck, all because Luke was paying attention.

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