22 July 2009

Don't ask me! I'm just a girl!

I've said before that even though I know how to change a tire, I am just not strong enough to get those bolts off. At least one person told me I could if Eric or some other man wasn't right there to do it (out of necessity, you see). My dad said I could if I stood on or kicked the wrench.

Tonight, I proved both of those people wrong.

My tire pretty much exploded on the highway at about the half-way point in my drive. Karina and I (read: Karina) managed to loosen two of the bolts on the tire. But the others were no-gos. We worked really hard on loosening them, but we were both very relieved when a man pulled over to help us. And by "help" I mean that he pretty much did the whole thing.

Note that it didn't help that the bolts were rusty. It also didn't help that Karina and I were both in flip-flops, which made it harder for us to jump on and kick the wrench. (Yes, we both tried hopping on the wrench).

4 comments:

Packrat said...

You are not alone. Not only can we not get the bolts loosened (much less getting the tire off and the new one on), getting the flat tire into the car is almost impossible. The spare tire for our pickup is so heavy I can't lift it enough to stand it up to roll it.

All this will also ruin whatever clothes you have on, too.

Packrat said...

PS - Glad help arrived and that you are okay.

charisse said...

I changed a tire once... it consisted of a LOT of jumping on the wrench by roommate who was 15 pounds heavier than me... I couldn't get it to budge. 120 lbs just isn't enough torque apparently.

James said...

One problem is that the wrenches that come with the cars are really lousy. I have broken two of them (one while it was 30 below, fun stuff). For about 25 bucks at Home Depot you can get a break bar (sort of a longer version of a socket wrench)with an attachment that fits the lug nuts on your car. In my opinion it is well worth the investment.