| | I have been driving around on spare tire for far longer than anyone should drive on a spare tire (over three weeks). When I bought my little Honda Civic Hatchback it was incongruently pimped out with 18" rims. Used tires of that size are hard to find and new tires are expensive, so when I had my third flat tire in 6 months, I decided to replace all four rims and tires with something more standard. Reasonable Ron of Reasonable Ron's Used Tires (that name cracks me up) recommended I look for rims at a do-it-yourself junkyard. Lured by the possibility of dirt cheap parts, I decided to give it a try. I rounded up a crack-team to help me: Megan, an opera singer, and Peter, a Canadian hydro-geologist (specializing in fecal matter. No, seriously. fecal matter). Early Saturday morning we set out in the cold, sleet, and snow. My timing, as always, was impeccable.
Pull-a-Part is the latest in eco-friendly, state-of-the-art junkyard technology. The lot was nicely landscaped and perfectly orderly, with computerized touch-screen inventory lists of the car's makes, models, and locations. We got a printout of all the Civics and set out. Through the neat rows of jacked-up, half-gutted, car-carcasses, we intrepid three -- the historian, the opera-singer, and the hydro-geologist -- searched for a car with suitable rims. Megan found an abandoned tickle-me-Elmo doll which we adopted as our mascot.
We found a couple scattered rims that would have worked, but were thwarted in the end by mis-matched lug-nuts that were too big for our lug wrench. In the course of our first failed attempt, we discovered that when the wheel spins and makes it impossible to loosen the lug-nuts, jamming a two-by-four in the wheel-well will hold the tire sufficiently steady. Jamming tickle-me-Elmo in the wheel-well, however, will not work. Poor Elmo.
Finally, just when hope was near gone and our collective toes near frozen, Peter found a civic with four steel rims complete with hubcaps. Using our two-by-four technique, the first three wheels came off easily enough, but the axle on the fourth was loose, making it impossible to keep the wheel steady enough. You must picture the following scene: Megan, all 110 pounds (if that) of her, strains against the two-by-four jammed in the wheel-well. I scramble up the side of the car and stand on the tire. Peter begins to fight with the lug-nuts. Just at this point, three men, clad in overalls and greasy jump-suits, wander by. "Do ya'll need help?", one of them deadpanned as the others looked at us, placid and unperturbed but clearly wondering what the hell we thought we were doing. I jumped down from the tire and as casually as I could tried to explain. He suggested we try the parking brake. Feeling very stupid, we found this solved our problem and obviated the need for two-by-fours or standing on tires.
As I laughed openly at the bizarreness of it all. Peter looked at me and said, "you feel like you're
in China." I did. Something about stepping so completely outside of my comfort-zone, taking a risk and trying to do something completely beyond my experience, reminded me of life in China. I don't know if it is this way for everyone, but when something is beyond my experience, beyond my comfort-zone, I tend to let go. I more easily see the humor and bizarreness in failure and difficulty. I become more resourceful and more flexible, and almost incapable of being embarrassed. I miss that.
And sometimes its when you take these kinds of risks that the best things happen. Those rims cost me 54 dollars. The cheapest rims I had tracked down elsewhere were going to cost me $130. When I got to Reasonable Ron, I was told that the tires on the rims, which I was not charged for, were perfectly good and should last me quite some time. So in the end, I got four rims, hubcaps, and tires, for about $75. I had expected to spend at least $220. So here's to Megan, Peter, and Elmo! I owe you.
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| | Posted 3/10/2008 12:18 PM - 81 Views - 4 eProps - 2 comments
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