My Deflated Ego

Before I got married, I was single for several years and completely self-reliant. If the trash needed taking out, I’d take it out. If a picture needed hanging, I’d hang it. If a bug was in the house and needed squishing, I’d squish it. Then I got married and I lost some of that. Why should I take out the trash when Mike is so good at it? Why should I hang a picture that will likely be hung off-center when Mike has a leveler that can aid in hanging it perfectly straight and centered? Is that a bug?!!! AAAAGGGGHHH!!! HEY, MIKE? CAN YOU COME HERE?

I have to say, I kind of miss that self-reliance I used to enjoy. Over time, I think I have lost some of the ability to take care of things. I don’t ever do anything related to home improvement or car maintenance or anything like that anymore. It probably sounds strange that I would be lamenting the days of toilet-plunging, but I just miss being capable of depending on myself to get things taken care of.

A good example of late is when an indication light in my car came on. I had no idea what it was indicating – I even referred to the Owner’s Guide to try and figure out what it was. I never found it and the car seemed to be running well, so naturally I ignored it. About a week and a half later, Mike mentioned to me that my back tire pressure was low and that he had fixed it. I looked at the dashboard and sure enough, the indicator light was off. Problem solved. I asked which tire it was that was low and he pointed to the back tires and said, “See?”. I, of course, didn’t see. They both looked the same to me.

So, over the course of the last few weeks, this light has kept coming on sporadically and Mike has magically made it disappear. Today, however, Mike was out of town. This was MY chance to take of it MYself. So, on the way to take Kate to her gym class, I happily pulled into the local gas station. I was now going to prove to myself that I could once again be self-sufficient.

My first annoyance was the banged-up truck and trailer that had pulled up and parked right in front of the air machine. The grizzly, hippy-looking guy saw me pull in behind him to wait my turn, acknowledged me, and then waltzed inside the gas station. So, this guy saw me… he just didn’t care that I needed what he was parked in front of. Grrrr…

So, I waited for a few minutes until I realized that he was in absolutely no hurry to get out of there and subsequently get the heck out of my way. So, I decided that I could probably just pull around and back in front of the machine to get my air. So, I angrily pulled over where I needed to be and noticed that there was a passenger in the car! At some point, this frumpy, groovy-looking girl could have moved the car since it was clearly blocking my path. But, no, she was too clueless – lost in a cloud of cigarette (or some other type of) smoke.

So, I shot her a dirty look and went about dramatically removing the air hose from its post and squatting next to my back tires – a move choreographed to excess just to drive home the point that they were still IN MY WAY. I had never filled my tires with air before, but I looked like I knew what I was doing. I had the pressure gauge in my hand (at least, I think that’s what it’s called) and when I inserted it into the back left tire, it popped out to about 15 whatevers. Seems like I remembered that tires should be at 30 whatevers, so I pushed the hose onto the thingy on the tire (this is all mechanic-speak for you lay people). I wasn’t sure what was supposed to happen. Was I supposed to squeeze the handle to make the air shoot into the tire? It made sense to do so, so that’s what I did. I had considered calling Mike for assistance, but this was my task to accomplish on my own. I held the hose steady for a little bit but the hissing sound kind of made it appear that I was actually losing air instead of filling the tire. I wasn’t at all sure I was accomplishing anything, but I removed the hose and put the pressure gauge back into the tire. This time it looked like it was just a hair lower than the last time, so I clearly wasn’t using the gauge right. I put the hose back onto the tire for a little while longer just for good measure and then went to the back right tire (since I had never really been able to discern which tire was leaking) to repeat these steps.

The right tire seemed to be in better shape because this time the pressure gauge popped out to between 20 and 25 whatevers. I pressed the hose into the tire for a little bit and decided that I needed to go back around to the left tire. If the right tire was between 20 and 25 whatevers, then the left one was too low. Keep in mind, the grungy couple hauling the trailer was still parked in the same place while I was doing all of this bending, stooping and squatting. I was still shooting them exasperated looks whenever possible, of course, and was prancing around this air hose like I knew what I was doing (which I did not).

So, I filled the left tire again briefly and decided to drive over to the pump for some fuel. While I’m pumping the gas, I check out the back tires. They both now seemed noticeably low to me. Maybe it was because I now comparing them to the look of the front tires. I was being more deliberate about how I was looking at this since it was now my project and my first step in reclaiming my self-reliance. Nevertheless, I decided once the tank was full, to go back over to the air hose. By this time, the inconsiderate couple had decided to leave – presumably to go get in someone else’s way.

Once back at the hose, I again got out of the car and went around to the back left tire. I didn’t take the pressure gauge with me this time. I figured I just needed to keep the hose to the tire for a longer period of time. But now it was appearing that this tire was actually losing air. It was now clearly lower than it had been when I had started all of this nonsense. What was I doing wrong? Did I mention that it was drizzling the whole time I was squatting down next to my tires? Why was I doing this?

I went around again to the back right tire and the same thing happened! I was growing more frustrated by the minute. Then I turned to replace the hose and something caught my eye. A small coin slot (as opposed to the big one I was displaying every time I squatted next to my car). A coin slot that indicated that it was 75 cents in order to use the air hose.

Imagine my embarrassment (I’m thinking of that hippy couple watching me) when I realized what I had just spent the better part of 20 minutes doing. I wasn’t pumping up the tires at all. This whole time I had actually been deflating my two back tires by plugging an empty air hose up to them. After fishing around in my wallet to find three quarters, I was able to pump up the tires and we were on our way to the gym. My ego was still somewhere on the ground by the air hose.

Well, that was my heroic story of trying to become more capable of fending for myself as I so often did in my single days. My recommendation to my married (or otherwise non-single) friends out there is to find ways to take care of yourselves even if your significant other could do it for you. Save yourself from waking up one day to realize that you are incapable of carrying out life’s simple little tasks anymore. That realization can really let the air out of your tires. So to speak.