Avril Lavigne and I can't change flats

[alexlibardes]

Ok. I don't get it. But..

Avril Lavigne and I can't change flats


Posted By TOM MILLS

Posted 1 day ago



This may surprise you, but Avril Lavigne and I don't have a lot in common.
Oh sure, there's the similarity in our appearance.
To me, she looks like a walking corpse. I'm sure I look the same to her, so ancient that I'm more likely to be asked for ID for the seniors' discount at the drug store than when I go to buy a case of beer.
But beyond our appraisal of each other's resemblance to a dead thing, there's not much we could bond over.
Except, of course, that both of us have changed a tire on a pickup truck.
Or, at least, I think that must have been what inspired her first big hit, "Complicated", with its whiny refrain: "Whydyahaftagoanmakethingssocomplicated (angryquestion/exclamation-mark)."
Because changing a tire, once among the simplest of auto-repair chores, is now decidedly complicated.
To say that I am not mechanically inclined is like saying that George Bush is not able to pronounce the word "nucular."
But once upon a time I could successfully perform a little minor mechanical magic on my automobiles.
I could use a coat hanger or an ice scraper to prop open the thingamajig and start my flooded car. Appalled by this, automakers invented fuel injections and electronic ignitions.
I could change the lightbulbs on my car. So automakers began to design vehicles with so little room in the engine compartment that one must remove the entire front end to change a lightbulb. Or else one's hands must be as tiny as those of a child, and the Children's Aid Society frowns at training your four-year-old to change halogen headlights.




So my scope as a mechanic was pretty well reduced to tire changes. I could handle that. I bet I've done at least 100 of them, once while wearing a tuxedo. To change a tire, you simply unscrew four or six or eight lug nuts. You lift up one corner of your vehicle using a jack, one of the simplest weapons in the automotive arsenal. If you don't have a jack, your can simply use a four-by-four and have a couple of strong men lift one end, but I recommend a jack instead, because jacks drink fewer of your beers.
You simply pull off the flat tire, replace it with a spare, screw the nuts back on and away you go.
Or, rather, away you go theoretically, because nothing that involves tools is ever as simple as it should be.
Let's assume that your jack is in working order and all of its parts are safely stowed under the back seat. We'll assume this even though it isn't true, especially if you let teenagers use your vehicle.
But fortunately, you have spare jack parts in your toolbox, which is why you have no room for the screwdrivers and hammers you really need.
Then you have to decide which parts of your hubcaps are removable. Console yourself with the fact that hubcaps are not essential to the operation of a motor vehicle.
Once the hubcap is removed or destroyed, you will discover that the guy who installed your tires was as fond of torque as he was of head-banging rock or deafening rap, and the lug nuts are effectively welded to your brake rotors.
But you've dealt with this before. You have a "spider" lug wrench and a two-metre-long hunk of pipe for leverage, and with the help of a passing truck driver or two you can give your tire freedom.
Finally, when you replace the flat with the spare, unless you are ridiculously anal about maintenance, your spare will have no more air in it than could be found in the lungs of a 97-year-old asthmatic. Which is why you have that little air compressor that runs off the cigarette lighter.
Easy, right?
Too easy, apparently, because the good people at generous motors have seen fit to install a "secondary latch system," a fallback in case the cable holding the spare tire should snap. Like that would ever happen.
OK, so it did happen to me once and that wheel is still somewhere between here and North Bay, but I still suspect the secondary latch system was invented by a roadside assistance service.
The instructions in my truck's guidebook for unlatching the secondary latch describe tightening the cable until I hear two clicks, loosening it three or four turns, then repeating the procedure at least two times. If that fails, I am to jack the centre of the spare up until the secondary latch releases and the tire is balancing on the jack. I'm not making this up.
But apparently they forgot the part about the secret Masonic handshake and throwing salt over my left shoulder.
They also forgot the ultimate act of frustration -- a sharp blow with a hammer that sent the spare to the ground in a cloud of dust.
The guy who later reinstalled my repaired spare and relatched the secondary latch was appalled that I had resorted to a blunt force instrument. Just give her a boot with your steel-toes, he advised.
Right, like I wear those with a tuxedo.
Tom Mills is news editor of The Sault Star. Contact him at
Article ID# 1098176

Owen Sound Sun Times - Ontario, CA

[DALE]

Huh?

[.omgpinkk--]

reallly dont feel like reading that right now
soooooo t4p

EDIT: i dont get it and i only read the first paragraph??

[Coke_gurl]

What is the article about ...? Weird

[Hunter S. Bukowski]

Haha, I don't understand what that really has to do with her though. Just a reference of something complicated..

And changing headlights really is a total bitch.

[Claudia]

Corspe? What?
That dude was high when he wrote that huh.

[[Avril Freakk.]]

WTF this is some weird shit i ever heard and i don't get it at all.

[Phili]

This isn't really about her... You can't read it looking for a way that connects to her.