TIRED OF MEN'S WORK

When I went out to eat at Panera Bread last week... I noticed a roofing nail embedded in my back left tire. It wasn’t flat but it concerned me. I wondered where I had picked it up. Twice this year we had to have AAA come out to the house to fix flats in my husband’s van. Fortunately no emergencies were involved. In both cases they were able to put a plug in the tire to fix it. They can only do that if the foreign object is on the face of the tire where it hits the road. If the problem is in the sidewall of the tire, they can’t repair it. This back left tire could probably be plugged, but the tires have some serious miles on them. So rather than wait for a slow leak to develop from the puncture, we opted to just replace the tire. The local tire store didn’t have our kind in stock. According the manager of the place, the new tires would have to be special ordered. He couldn’t predict when they’d come in. But he’d give us a call. My husband couldn’t take off work, so the deal was, I’d have to handle it. My husband usually takes care of all car business. Inevitably when I handle such things... something always goes wrong... and my husband ends up getting a frantic call... usually at the most inopportune time... with me screaming, "HELP". But we were cautiously optimistic, this time, things would be pretty straightforward. So... when the tires finally came in... I took my van in at the designated time. They told me it would take approximately 45 minutes to do the job. First, they had to pull the old tires off the rear and toss them. Then, as per my husbands request… they would put the front tires on the back of the van, and the new tires on the front. This confused me, but made sense to all of them. Go figure. They told me to have a seat in the waiting room. It consisted of rows of uncomfortable folding chairs and tables scattered throughout their showroom. I was one of two women in the place. The rest were men. I felt like a fish in a fishbowl. On each table was an assortment of testosterone related reading material and nothing else. IMAGINE that? It made me a tad bit uncomfortable. Thank goodness for my Droid smartphone. I was easily able to access my Kindle and read something a bit more to my liking. Plus... it kept me occupied. I was surprised when the shop guy called my name and said they were finished. Thank goodness the time passed quickly. With the new tires... now on the van, I was able to go on my way, and leave this stifling environment behind. I'm TIRED of men's work.