North Dakota's overreporter

There’s a long list of occupations out there that I’m not qualified to do. For example, I can’t stand looking at people’s insides, so I’m probably not cut out to be a doctor. Despite years of practice, I’ve never even been flexible enough to touch my toes, so I’m probably not going to end up being a ballerina. But one occupation that’s way way WAY up on the list of things I’m never going to be is mechanic.

It’s not like this is a new realization – I’ve always been awful at fixing things. When a light bulb went out in our bathroom in my freshman year of college, my roommate and I decided to bring in a lamp, since neither of us could figure out how to change the light bulb. (Does that sound like a blond joke, or what?) I do, however, remember one occasion when I was very proud of my mechanical skills. When our toilet wouldn’t stop flushing, I rigged it with string and tape. True, after that it wouldn’t flush at all, but I was proud of myself for fixing the immediate problem.

But all in all, my lack of mechanical aptitude has never really been a problem for me. I may not be able to fix things, but I’m usually pretty good at knowing who to contact when something needs to be fixed. When it came to home repair, I always had a landlord or some similar person who I could go to for help. And my dad has always handled any sort of work that needs to be done on my car.

Speaking of my car, I have a PT Cruiser, and despite all you naysayers who can’t appreciate its true beauty, I happen to love it. One of the great things about it is that so far it’s been a very reliable vehicle. Dad handles the oil change every few months, and other than that, it really hasn’t required any maintenance.

…Until three days ago. Three days ago, I went to a meeting in LaMoure, which is about twenty miles away from Edgeley. Everything was fine on the way there, but when the meeting was over and I started to drive away, I noticed my car was making a funny sound. At first I ignored it, seeing as how I knew I wouldn’t be able to fix whatever was wrong with it anyway, but as I drove onto the highway and started picking up speed, I realized that even I couldn’t ignore this problem.

Upon inspection of my car, I realized that I had a flat tire. Actually, it took me a shockingly long time to realize even this much. I had to walk around my car twice before I spotted the source of the problem, and even then, I wasn’t completely sure that my tire was flat. I could see it had pulled away from the rim, but I wasn’t really sure if that was the same thing as flat.

This may sound a little stupid, but the knowledge that I had a bad tire absolutely floored me. Seriously. As I sat in my car, I realized that I had absolutely no clue how to deal with this situation. I knew this was a fairly common occurrence, but what did people do when they had car trouble? My immediate impulse was to call dad, but as he was in Florida, I was pretty sure he wouldn’t be able to help. I knew that I had a spare tire somewhere, but changing it myself was absolutely out of the question. I looked in the owner’s manual, and realized that I couldn’t understand anything beyond the location of the jack. After considering several options, I decided to call my grandparents and have them come pick me up.

One thing I did learn from this experience is that I should never speed in the area immediately outside of LaMoure. Within fifteen minutes of my pulling over, two cop cars came up behind me to see what was wrong. The first guy looked nearly as lost as I did, and pulled away as soon as I told him I’d already called someone. The second guy (bless him!) actually stopped and helped me change my tire. And when I say he helped me change my tire, I mean he changed it while I held anything that needed holding.

So with the help of the cop, and my grandpa who pulled up soon afterwards, I did get my tire changed and I managed to make it home. The funny part about this story is that the road to LaMoure has always seemed much longer than twenty miles. I don’t know why that is, but other people have noticed it as well. That night, I spent about 45 minutes waiting to get my tire changed, and another half hour to 45 minutes driving home at 35 mph. That length of time, plus the LaMoure-Edgeley time warp, made it seem like the longest drive EVER. I’m pretty sure the road from Texas to North Dakota was shorter than that sucker. At least I now have a good war story to tell the next time I’m on a long international flight.