I'm The Last Person You Should Call In An Emergency
Unless you actually need someone to scream and run around in circles.
Our normally scheduled newsletter has been waylaid, once again, by Life. I am in NO mood to write about how chocolate is a murdery food that is both saving our lives and killing us at the same time. Maybe next week.
I know—you can hardly wait.
So anyway, as I left the office Friday night at around 7:00 p.m., the low tire pressure light lit up on my instrument display.
I immediately elevated the situation to DEFCON 1 and proceeded to freak the fuck out.
Now, bear in mind that this has happened to me at least twice before and I (obviously) survived. I don’t know what’s going on in Medina, Ohio, but apparently, the streets are strewn not with diamonds, but with nails.
Did that fact help me calm down? Hell no.
Instead, I texted my boyfriend:
“Hello, 911? I need hrlo! My tire is depressed!”
See, that’s the problem. It wasn’t even a real emergency. It was just cold and dark, and I was far from home with a dog-child in the truck, and I immediately forgot both how to type and how to operate the portable air compressor I carry around with me for this very occasion.
Now, if my boyfriend had responded immediately rather than an hour later (note to self), my answer probably would not have been, “I’ll go to Goodyear tomorrow and get a plug, or a new tire.”
It would’ve been more like:
And this is all because I’m a girl. This is classic girl behavior, and it makes me crazy.
A giant apple tree limb came down at my mom’s house a few days ago in a windstorm. I figured I’d get around to cleaning it up eventually when the weather was nicer.
But no. The limb was apparently eating at the neighbors’ peace of mind. It whispered to them in their sleep, “Stop by Bev’s mom’s house, preferably while they’re eating lunch, and offer to have one of your unsuspecting male offspring clean it up and haul it away.”
The neighbors tend to act like I either don’t exist or that, since I’m unmarried, I must be sitting in a dark room all day coughing into a handkerchief like a consumptive Austen character.
I mean, hello. I can clean up a fallen tree limb. Not quickly or well, but I assure you the job will get done.
So of course I had to drop everything and trek out into the muddy lawn (which is in the middle of absolutely nowhere, by the way, so I don’t know whose aesthetic, exactly, was being harshed) and started jumping on the limb with both feet (I’m sure this was safe) to break it up into pieces I could haul over the hill.
In the end, I cleaned up all of the smaller branches and, dripping sweat, called it a day until I could obtain some dangerously sharp limb-whacking device, like maybe a chainsaw, which I want really badly and must never, ever be allowed to possess.
Long story short (I’m leaving out the text exchange with my boss where he offered to bring his entire family over, basically, to cut up one tree limb—all I wanted was to borrow his Dewalt reciprocating saw), my mom’s lawn guy was passing by, picked up the entire limb with one hand, and dragged it over the hill.
See, it’s shit like that that makes me insane.
I’m absolutely useless in any situation involving cars, blood, or that require upper body strength.
I hate asking for help.
But I have to, because I’m physically weaker than a man, and no matter how many YouTube videos I watch about how to plug a tire, which I could totally do if I was only strong enough, I have to find a man to help me do things.
Except for setting my airfryer on fire earlier this afternoon while making lunch. I did that all by myself.
"Low tire pressure" is right up there with "change ink cartridge" as one modern existence's most difficult, painful experiences.
It's posts like this that make me wish Substack allowed highlighting, there are so many choice lines.. brilliant and hilarious, Bev.