Nothing But Love :: golf blogger

Flat Tires and Flight Attendants

The judge threw out my client's lawsuit today. Under most circumstances, I would be very upset; but if you knew what the case was about, you would think that I was fucking nuts for representing tne kid. Another lawyer asked me to try the case, which I love doing. Sometimes, the facts aren't there. We gave it a shot.

All I know is that the kid's mother will be second-guessing one of my decisions from now until doomsday. Now, I'm not going to really talk about what she asked me; but if we assume that she works for an airline as a flight attendant, she would have asked if she should wear her flight attendant's uniform and sit in back of the courtroom. Why? Because that would be more ... ummm ... business-like. You know. Still trying to figure that one out.

So, when the white VW with the black "The Who" sticker on the back bumper revolted and picked up a flat tire this afternoon, I wasn't too upset. I jacked up the front right end and got the lug nuts off without any problem once I figured out which way to turn them. I can tell you this right now -- it's either clockwise or counter-clockwise -- one of those ... I think. I did get them off, and I did find out after I got the third one loose that they all turn the same way -- it's either clockwise or counter-clockwise -- one of those ... I think. That's probably in the instruction booklet somewhere, but all I found was something about 600 pages long divided into 28 different sections entitled "Owner's Manual." That tome was no help at all.

I changed tires before, but never on a car made with precision German engineering. I figured that the American cars I had driven before were different, since I didn't even have to loosen any of the lug nuts on the right front wheel of my Pontiac Sunfire to get the wheel off ... I was driving the fucking machine of death on Interstate-77 at the time when the right front end hit the pavement, and I saw in the side view mirror the tire bouncing over on my right and behind me. It's tough to steer an American car with one front wheel on and one front wheel bouncing into the path of a tractor-trailer accelerating down the entrance ramp, especially when you know that the trucker is taking aim, trying to hit the tire into the passenger seat of the Pontiac Sunfire convertible with the top down ... they get points for that, I think.

Yeah, clockwise, counter-clockwise, whatever. I got them off. The real problem was that the aluminum wheel was stuck to the axle. There's some kind of chemical reaction with the aluminum and the steel axle -- something like that.

I saw that happen in a movie once -- with Robert Lansing -- where the pesky scientist, played by Robert Lansing, of course, shows a dumb scientist, who happens to be his brother, how to stick together a gold bar and a silver bar.

So, that's how I know what happened with the wheel and the axle ... and oh, yeah, Robert Lansing ... he turns maniacally evil because he ends up going through walls and stuff himself, but doing so sucks the life right out of him, just as you would expect (but in the movie, he didn't have common sense and never figured out something like that would happen until it really happened), and he ends up sticking his hand into other people, women, mainly, sucking the life out of them and re-invigorating himself. The genius of the film-maker ... it's hard to believe, but this whole thing with Robert Lansing was a metaphor for sexual promiscuity and the AIDS epidemic and all that ... or maybe not.

Anyway, the damn VW wheel would not come off. Sitting on the curb in a parking lot with all kinds of SUV's driving by, kicking the damn wheel, trying to loosen it, I felt pretty silly ... like Robert Lansing felt when he finally ran out of energy and got stuck in a wall ... a real dumbass.

Then I remembered the trick. I put the lug nuts back on, being careful to turn them the correct way, either clockwise or counter-clockwise, but didn't tighten them all the way. I had to unjack the car, then I backed the car up and drove it forward, back and forward a few times across two parking spaces. Jacked it back up. Voila! The damn wheel came right off when I took the lug nuts off.

There's nothing quite like a law school education.

Posted by Bill at October 5, 2004 11:35 PM