Brighten Your Day

I was walking to work and a woman drove slowly past me with a blown out tire. It was on a small street about to feed into a much larger street. I pointed at her tire to see if she knew it was blown (sometimes people don't notice these things and they wreck their rims). She made motions as though she knew but didn't know what to do about it.

Normally at this point I'd wave, say have a nice day and carry on with my life (actually, I lie. Normally I would have pretended I hadn't seen her in the first place). But dammit, I grew up on a farm. I can change a bloody tire on a subcompact car in 3 minutes.

I waved her into the empty parking spot between us. I asked her if she needed help and she said (in a very thick accent) "I have no idea how to change a tire or where the spare is." I got her to put on the e-brake and pop the trunk and proceeded with a tire change that would get me hired at NASCAR. We didn't stop to exchange any pleasantries because both of us were late for work.

Changing a tire is no big deal to me -- I have done it hundreds of times and to do it for her cost me nothing more than 3 minutes of my time and some dirty hands.. To her it was a big problem. It felt good to stick my neck out.

I hope that when she retells the story she makes me out to be dashingly handsome.