How to avoid a Deliverance moment

Well it finally happened. I was inspired to write something. No, not so much inspired but incensed really.

My friend, coworker and nemesis Tess informed all of us that she can't change a tire. Apparently our other coworker, Chiquita Banana, told Tess that her tire is flat in the parking lot and they either needed to go get air or change it. Not a big deal, except it is 17 degrees outside. I casually asked Tess if she had a spare. She indicated that she did but it was all the way in the back of her Jeep. Knowing her the way I do, I assumed that she would stay here at work indefinitely rather than actually attempt to change the tire herself....or freeze to death in the car waiting for someone to rescue her.

I can certainly understand calling AAA or a burly man. This would be my first choice on the list of what to do's but if I was stuck out in the middle of nowhere with a tire of the pancake persuasion and did not have option 1 or 2, I could change the damn tire myself. My Daddy made sure I knew how. Along with using jumper cables in the correct way as to not blow up a battery.

Maybe my parents erred on the "Worst Case Scenario" side of caution at times, but I at least know that if I'm ever in Alabama at 2 in the morning on the shoulder of a dark I-65 with a nail that I inadvertently picked up somewhere north Montgomery sticking directly into one of my tires....again.....that I will not have to just sit there and wait for a boozed up hillbilly with gleam in his eye and a perverse sense of right and wrong to wander by and offer his services. This makes me feel a little bit better about myself and it worries me for my friends.

At this point I have decided that, as soon as the arctic blast that has paralyzed us in here in the typically balmy south leaves us and returns north to the land of no biscuits, I will teach my daughters how to change a tire.

Her Majesty, my oldest daughter who is the only one driving at this point already knows how to jump a battery off. She has a very bad habit of leaving her lights on. She has required a boost no less than 8 times in the last 6 months. You'd think by now, she'd realize what the dinging meant.