The day before the first snow fall, I had my winter tires put on my car by trusted professionals.
Every year, the Carpenter loads the tires into my car. When I return home, he removes the switched tires and stows them away. Easy, peasy. Except this time, he forgot.
The next morning, with the snow piled high on my car, I discovered my snow brush was wedged underneath the weight of four heavy tires. I was already late for work. Not a good start.
I expressed my frustration audibly with a single bad word, and decided to pull the tires out of the car by myself, because, as I told myself, I don’t need my husband to do these things. I am a grown woman. I can do it.
Yeah, except I can’t do it well. My nickname in high school was Grover, as in the blue puppet on Sesame Street with freakishly long, skinny arms. I am still Grover with a Winnie the Pooh physique now, but I have the determination of Tigger, so I pulled the first plastic-wrapped tire out of the car, bouncing it too hard on the cold pavement, then running alongside to steer its rolling momentum to the garage. I felt good. I’d done this without help. Carry on.
I freed my snow brush, dropped in the deep snow atop my car, and continued to remove the next tire. Things went sideways when the tire also went sideways, just missing my foot. I had to flip it on its side, (what a site), and managed to roll that tire quickly, maybe too quickly, as it got ahead of me, heading directly toward the side-runners on the Carpenter’s truck.
In my effort to grab the tire before it crashed into the truck, my hand became lodged in between the two. My middle finger was squished. Oh, the irony. More bad words, spouted at a louder volume. I angrily pushed that tire with all my Grover might. It fell with a thud. I kicked it. I felt better for kicking it.
Finger throbbing, I stormed into the house and yelled out to the Carpenter that I had sustained a serious injury whilst removing the tires from my car single-handedly. Misery loves attention, right? You should have seen the pout. I was on point.
He came running, suspecting the worst, only to see me holding up my red, throbbing middle finger, which he mistook as an invitation to laugh.
I got the usual response: why didn’t I ask for help? Why didn’t I remind him about the tires? Why did I think I could do this without injuring myself when I have arms like Grover? (It’s meaner when he says it). And why was I doing this now, if I was already late for work? All super helpful judgements.
He ran out and removed the last two tires, rolling them easily with one hand each. Show off.
I still needed to clean the snow off my car, except I forgot where I put the snow brush. Many more bad words.
To add insult to injury the Carpenter asked, “Where did you last put it?” Seriously, Sherlock? I raised my throbbing finger in response. He smiled smugly.
Suddenly, the Carpenter reached across the roof of the car and retrieved the sunken snow brush. Oh, he was proud of himself.
There is no lesson here.
That’s it. That’s the story.
Ugh.
