In this photo you get to see the spare tire from my Subaru. Not much to look at I know… I did have a photo of the flat tire, but it really didn’t look flat so I didn’t use that.
But what does this all mean. To me it means one simple thing, my manhood is intact. I could tell the car has a flat, pulled over, got the jack out of the back found the jack point, used good old fashion brute strength (kicking the crap out of the wheel nuts) removed old tire put new one on, dropped the car back down and put the jack away. All of this on a cold morning in Melbourne.
It is strange but in this post modern feministic world, changing a tire makes me feel like a man. Fine so it is not killing a wooly mammoth with a sharpened stick nor battling the Mongolian herds with an arrow, but to me it means something. There were no manuals, no freeting, just a simple realisation that a mans job needed doing and I was the man for the job.
I sit at a desk most of the day doing very esoteric stuff writing lines of code for software that will not fix world hunger, do anything about the struggle for media freedom in china or even find wmd’s where ever they may be. But this morning for 20 minutes I was a man, I slayed the beast, brought food to the cave and got to work only a little late.
I think today may be a good day after all.
P.s
My annoyance however is not with the situation this morning, it is with car manufactures that insist that you have a “Space saver spare”, cause if you ever get a flat everything will be ok. No it won’t! The last three flat tires I have had were all within 50k’s of Melbourne. One on a gravel road, one right next to the cbd and this one 15k’s from the CBD. Now the Subaru would not drive on a gravel road with a space saver!. The CDB incident was at 4pm on a Sunday and we still had to drive friends out to the airport, not possible with a space saver. And this mornings incident meant we can deal with the tire later today or tomorrow and still made it to work on time, not possible with a space saver.
I will never buy a car with a space saver tire for this reason alone. Sure they take up some room, but like house insurance, if your house burnt down would you want a policy that took up less room, or the full deal for when things go wrong.
Tags: Annoyances, General, Photos by Me
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