Don’t Be Stupid. Be Crazy . . .

After a nice quiet morning I drove over to the NTB tire store (not Discount Tires) to get my rounded-off lug nut off. I got there about 12:20  for my 12:30 appointment and found them really busy. After finding a place to park, I went inside to check in.

When I said I had a 12:30 appointment to get some lug nuts off, the clerk said he couldn’t find my appointment, and since they were really busy, I’d have to come back at another time.

I told him to check using my phone number.

“Nope. Nothing here. You’ll have to come back later.”

“So you’re saying I don’t have an appointment.”

“No, there’s nothing in the system about it.”

“Then why is my name and appointment time scheduled on the monitor right over your head?”

Turning and looking up at the monitor, he grinned sheepishly and said, “Oh, here it is. Pull up to Bay 2.”

Since he had a lobby full of ‘real’ customers, I guess he didn’t want to fool with me.

About five minutes a tech came out with a special socket and a big hammer. When I pointed out the bad lug, he hammered the socket on the lug, and used his impact driver to remove the lug.

Or tried to.

It even took him several tries to break it loose with his driver, but finally it came free.

Now I don’t feel so bad.

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Then I ask him to break loose the lugs on the driver’s side rear just in case. As he was doing that, he said what must have happened was the wrong impact driver was used. Some of them are set up to mount heavy truck tires and shouldn’t be used on regular vehicles.

He left the bad lug nut off and handed it to me, saying that the wheel would be OK with just five.

This reminded me of a favorite story of mine.

While driving out in the countryside, a man found himself with a flat tire. As he removed each lug nut he placed it in the hubcap for safe keeping. Mounting the new tire on the hub, he accidentally stepped on the edge of the hubcap, flipping 4 of the 5 lug nuts into the water-filled ditch next to the car.

As he was trying to figure out what to do, he hears a voice behind him. Turning, he saw a high chain-link fence topped with barbed wire. And a small sign on the fence that said, “Meadowbrook Insane Asylum”.

The voice belonged to a man standing behind the fence, who said,”You wanna know what to do?”

“Sure. What?”

“Take one lug nut off the other three wheels, and that, with the one you have left, will give you four lugs on all the wheels, fine to get you to the next town.”

“That’s brilliant, but why are you . . .?”

“Why am I in here? I’m in here because I’m crazy, not because I’m stupid.”

Moral: Don’t Be Stupid. Be Crazy.

About 4pm Jan and I headed over to the Denny’s to have our usual Sunday afternoon breakfast for dinner. Always good.


Thought for the Day: 

The Federal Government says that 4,153,237 people got married last year. Maybe it’s just me, but shouldn’t that be an even number?

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