Thankful for the Spare Tire, part 2

Continued from last post.

Side note: A couple of years ago, my mom told me she was going to cancel her home phone. She’d use just her cell phone from then on. So I deleted her land line number from my cell phone directory. I’ve since only called her cell phone. But she never actually canceled her land line.

On this Thanksgiving morning, when I called her cell phone, she didn’t answer. Her phone was back in her bedroom, out of hearing range.

Now, I don’t tell any of the above as a complaint, but merely to complete the scene of me trying to effect a change of tires in a gravel parking lot on a cold November morning.

After failing to get her on her cell phone, I thought for a moment and remembered her home phone number. I thought myself rather intelligent to remember the number after having not so much as looked at it in at least two years, and not having dialed it directly in years more than that. (Who dials directly when we have speed dial?)

I dialed her home phone number, but got a sleepy man on the line. “Sorry, wrong number,” I explained. Dammit.

I waited a few minutes sitting in the van, out of the cold breeze. After a couple minutes, my mom called me back on her cell phone. I explained that I needed her to come out to me so I could use her car jack. “OK,” she said, “I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

I waited a couple more minutes, and then on a lark, I went back to the trunk of the van to fiddle with the stuck jack again.

I tried several times to turn the screw on the jack, and finally it moved. I managed to turn it far enough that I could get the jack out of its sleeve. I immediately called my mom back and told her not to come to me.

I took the jack and commenced to lifting up the van. The short jack handle combined with cold hands made raising the van frustratingly difficult — I scraped my knuckles on the gravel a few times. Ow, crap. Ow, shit. Ow, mutha’ fuckin’ shit.

Anyway, to make an already long story not longer, I got the flat tire off and the spare tire on. The interior of the van was a wreck with family junk strewn everywhere, but I just closed all the doors and drove off. My cussing died down within the hour.

The next day, I got the tire replaced (two, actually, as it was about time anyway).

Moral of this story? I don’t know.

Revelation from this story? I can cuss. (My mom will probably send me an email chastising me for my language in these recent posts.)

Facepalm moment from this story? I remembered my mom’s home phone number correctly, but I used the wrong area code. <sigh>

Bullgrit