Tuesday, September 25, 2007

Feeling helpless

I know you're amazed to see a post in the middle of the afternoon on a school day when I should be at work and so busy with everything that I couldn't possibly post. That would be in a perfect world. I am, in fact, sitting in my recliner right now and thinking about going back to work. But first, let me tell you of my wonderful morning. (Yes, I know you're bracing yourselves for some horrendous tragedy... it's really not that bad, unless you're me.)

I left for work around 7:15 which is when I absolutely had to leave to get to school on time to meet my students that needed to come in for tutorials. I got on the highway to Hereford trolling along until all of a sudden my car is driving very weird. I pull over. Sure enough, my luck, I have a massive flat tire. Not just a tire that went flat, a tire that looks like it exploded. Wonderful. I have a trunk full of extemp files that I have to move into my backseat. I get out the tire changing tools and my spare. I kept thinking, that surely someone would see a helpless woman doing this on the side of the road. No such luck. I get the car jacked up and try to remove the lug nuts when I remember that I should have loosened them before I jacked the car up. I put the car down. I try to loosen the lug nuts. I kept reminding myself "Righty-tighty, Lefty-loosey" but I wasn't making progress in either direction. I called my brother to confirm that in fact I needed to turn the lug wrench to the left. He said yes and I said it wasn't budging and he said I needed to put more effort into it. (As though I wasn't straining every bit of muscle I had.) I tried the other lug wrench that was in my trunk (the kind with four ends in a big "X") and I finally get two of the lug nuts off. Keep in mind that I've been doing this for about 10 minutes now. (It just seems faster reading about it.) I am wondering why there are no good Samaritans left in the world, when suddenly a very nice guy shows up. I want to cry. (O.k. so maybe I did a little bit... I was feeling a bit overwhelmed.) He quickly got the rest of the lug nuts off and had my tire changed in 5 minutes. I am quite certain that I could have accomplished it, but it probably would have taking me about 20 minutes. I thank the man and exclaim what a lifesaver he was.

I get in my car and then the tears just come. I hate feeling helpless. It sucks. I decide that it might not be a good idea to drive on my dinky spare all the way to Hereford and then back today. I compose myself enough to call the school and tell them I need a sub for 1st and 2nd period. I then come home and send a quick email regarding what the classes should do. I then head to Amarillo to buy new tires. (Yes, all tires were in horrible shape.) I spend way more money than I really have right now so I'm going to have to do some very creative bill paying this month. I don't know if I was taken advantage of but I felt like I spent far more than I needed to. The problem is that when you are crunched for time, you don't have a lot of options to shop around. I went to the place that I always go because in general I think they've been fair and I like the warranty with their tires. It took over an hour and a half for my tires to be replaced because they had to pick up tires from the downtown warehouse and then they picked up the wrong ones. I finally headed back home stopping to pick up rear brake pads for my car as well.

I hate this kind of stuff. I know it's part of the joys of car ownership, but I hate dealing with it. I'm supposed to have my tires rotated every 6000 miles. As though I have the time to deal with that. I had to take 1/2 a day off just for today's fiasco. I wonder how real people live. Do people just generally have money and time for these kinds of things? I have heard over and over that you shouldn't live beyond your means, but I live within what I have and nothing more. I have enough to pay my bills every month. I live in a hand-me-down house, with hand-me-down furniture, and drive a hand-me-down car. I feel guilty when I buy something for myself or do something like get a hair cut because that money could have gone to something more important, I'm sure. O.k. so I'm having my own little pity party. I'll get over it. I am thankful for what I have; sometimes I just wish that some things were easier.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

"I wonder how real people live."
What do you mean by "real people"?

What made you cry? You helped yourself. Young hero did the work faster, that's what young heroes are for. I simply can not see a blown tire as fiasco and wonder how you come to think of this in this way. Simply do not get it.

Anonymous said...

Hey Annabel

It was not about the blown tire.
I think you are just wounded by bad experiences in life....you know, emotional baggage. So when you faced a challenging situation, it triggered those tears to fall.

No fear or tears.
Faithe - Singapore
ngfaithe@hotmail.com

Anonymous said...

Hi Annabel
Yes i can understand how you feel.
When one is helpless, it is really a bad feeling to have. One would then feel that the whole world is crushing and coming down onto you and you would not be able to take it espcially if there is no one to help you or to give you support of any kind at that moment. We are not perfect, on top of that, we would not be able to know everything. Just like myself when i tried to change my laptop operating system(OS) from Vista to XP, i almost felt like crying too. It took me more than a week just to do that. I had been sleeping very few hours over that one week just trying very hard to change the OS from Vista to XP on my notebook. This may sound unreal but its true. This may sound crazy but its not. The reason is because somehow i can't find format the notebook initially. Then after i maange to format it and install Windows XP, i can't find a lot of the drivers for my notebook, so my notebook would not function and i am not able to use my notebook for the whole week. All those drivers that i can find is for Vista, not for XP . Even if i can find the drivers for XP, they are not for my notebook's hardware or devices. It is hard going especially when i really need to use the notebook urgently but i simply can't use it and it can't be fix. I had asked many people and many friends for help. Finally i fixed it . I am so happy. So from this little incident, you can see that even something that looks so simple but when one is lacking of the necessary knowledge or experience in that area, it would then be a great challenge and a tough nut to crack.
michael_liau@otmail.com
Singapore