With Style

Brodder went to try out a new hairstylist today for a new cut and colour and he insisted that I accompany him. His appointment was at 4pm. Easy enough; I didn't have to leave for volleyball until 6pm, and I already had all my gear with me. And, as a backup in case Brodder's colouring took longer than I had, Shmelly was going to meet me there at the salon so that I could leave Brodder the van and Shmelly could drive me to volleyball in his Bucket truck. I was all prepared. So as it turned out, Brodder's styling session took exactly until 6pm and since Shmelly was there, I left Brodder the van anyway and headed off for the courts--not before checking out the new 'do of course (lookin' good).

Brodder got to the van first and was already heading out of the parking lot by the time Shmelly and I got to our ride. Just as I was about to be helped into my side of the Bucket, we paused as we heard a strangely loud *hisssssssssssss* and we turned just in time to see the van hop down from a curb to avoid a crazy Chinese road-hog. Not sure what or where the *hissssssssssssss* had come from, we set out for volleyball anyway, figuring that if it had been anything relevant to us, we would have known about it by then.

Two seconds later and not even out of the parking lot, we knew about it. My cell phone rang.

    "Hello?"
    "Uh, come rescue me, I have a flat tire."
    *sigh* "We're on our way."

And so, Shmelly turned that Bucket right around and we found Brodder, just outside the parking lot, luckily in the right lane and far enough away from the intersection so as not to impede traffic. As quickly and smoothly as a trained pit crew, Shmelly and I set to work as Brodder stood by and watched. Shmelly went out and set up pylons behind the Bucket and van to direct traffic around us (thank goodness for that Bucket!) while I searched out and found the van's jack and tool set. Shmelly flipped up the bottom of the trunk in order to unscrew the spare tire while I readied the jack and handed him the tire iron.

That's when we realized that we had a problem: the tire iron in the tool kit was WAY too small for the bolts.

To make a LONG story short--and trust me, it is LONG--it wasn't until 6 tire irons, 4 cars, and 2 hours later that we FINALLY got that tire changed.

Tire Iron 1 - the one from the van.
Tire Iron 2 - the one from the Bucket.
Tire Iron 3 - the one from the hair stylist.
Tire Iron 4 - the one from our friend.
Tire Iron 5 - the one from Brodder's friend.
Tire Iron 6 - the one from our friend's dad's socket set.

Car 1 - Shmelly's Bucket.
Car 2 - our friend's van.
Car 3 - our friend's dad's car.
Car 4 - Dad's car.

To sum it all up in a few lines...

As Shmelly left to get to volleyball first:
    "Just leave the pylons as far back as they are. Some people are REALLY ignorant drivers and still tend to miss them. Just remember, if you hear *thump thump thump*, jump to the right."

As we tried tire iron after tire iron:
    "ARGH!!! What kind of car comes with a tire iron that doesn't fit?!"

As our friend's dad was trying to loosen all of the rusted on bolts:
    "Grrrr...Jumpin' Jehosephat these things are tough!"
    "Hey, that's the second time he's said that--we should keep count,"
    "Trust me, if you kids weren't here, that wouldn't be all I'd be sayin'."

And just as we thought Brodder was losing hope:
    "Well, at least my hair looks good."

What a day.