I Am Woman

Today I was driving to the airport on C-470 to pick up Conor and Liz from their vacation trip. The noise from my tires was especially loud—I had had a low tire a couple of weeks ago and just hadn’t gone to Big O to check it out.

Sure enough, I looked in the rear-view mirror and saw slivers of rubber hurling from the back right side of the car. The car started pulling to the right, and I smelled a tar-like odor from the disintegrating tire.

I pulled onto the shoulder, turned on my flashers, popped open the hood, got out and propped it up and proceeded to unload my trunk. The year I graduated college, my dad had me change out my studded tires and put on summer tires before I moved into the world on my own. I have changed tires a couple of times since then, but probably not in the last 20 years. Not that I remembered exactly how to do it, but I knew I could do it.

It took me a few minutes, analyzing the jack and situating it under the notches on the car before I could make it work. That was the most confusing part actually. Once it was positioned, I turned it and jacked up the car. The handle of the jack is also the tool to dislodge the lugnuts. I leveraged my weight against the jack handle to turn the lugnuts—lefty-loosey and eventually they gave way. The spare in my trunk was full-sized and seemed to have enough air in it. I positioned it to fit onto the five lugs (is that what you call them?) and tightened the nuts randomly, not consecutively in a circle ( I remembered vaguely about this) till they were secure. Then once again, I leaned all my weight against the tool to make sure each one was tight so I could travel safely down the road.

Later in the day, I went to Big O Tires to see if I had put the tire on securely, and to see if I needed a whole new set of tires. Frank, the customer service guy, was impressed. “You must have some big guns,” he admired, as he touched my arm. Well, with working out, a lot of grit, and above average body weight—yes—I did have the strength to do this very common thing.

All day, I told my family and friends about my accomplishment—I called home and thanked my dad for encouraging me to do it so many years ago. I couldn’t help it. I was very proud of myself for changing my own tire. I am woman, hear me roar! Trying something challenging or outside your comfort zone and succeeding is a tremendous boost to your self-esteem—something we can all use, don’t you think?