Flat Tire

When the going gets tough, the tough get going.  If this is indeed the case, than I’m about as tough as a pancake because when the going gets tough, I’m prone to taking a seat, my brain stuck in neutral, unable to go anywhere.

The lovely wife calls it flat tire syndrome.

You’re driving along.  You get a flat tire.  You get out of the car and you look at the tire.   Yes, you have a flat tire, all right.  Cars do not move, at least not well, with flat tires.  In order for a car to move well, the tire must be changed.  The spare tire is in the trunk as are the tools – the lift, the wrench.   And yet....

Maybe it would be better to take a seat by the side of the road and watch the cars whiz by.   I don’t want to change the tire.  I’m not good at changing tires.  At this moment, I don’t even like the tire.  All I want is to be where I was going.  I’m not sure now where I was going but it’s got to be better than this.  This fucking flat tire is making me anxious.   It’s making me worried and nervous.   I don’t want to even think about the flat tire.  I want the flat tire and the car to go away and leave me alone. 

Where's a tow truck when you need one?    How much money will it take to get someone else to do this?   Why can't I afford it?

At this moment, as often as not, the lovely wife will open the passenger window and shout out –

Will you stop standing there like a somnambulist and change the tire!

To which I’ll reply –  

Why me?   Why can’t you do it?

To which she’ll reply –

Because I’m busy keeping the motor running!

Or the equivalent there of.

And I know I should get off my ass and do the job, I know it won’t be all that hard, that I’m semi-competent, in fact, when I put my mind to something, I’m more than  competent, that I’m fast and efficient and soon the tire will be changed and we’ll all be on our way again.

But dammit, before I grit my teeth and dive in, I want to go record as saying I still wish the @#$%^&*()&% tire would change itself!

But it won’t.  It never does.  The bills don’t pay themselves.  The health plan people, if they answer the phone, will not be clear and reasonable and you'll have to call again.   Walls will not paint themselves.   Floors replace themselves.  The information necessary for every day life will not effortlessly reveal itself.  That new story idea that will renew your career – if you even want one anymore - will refuse to write itself.   The world your children are going to inherit will continue to go to hell in a hand basket. 

Unless you at least try and do something about it.   You know you’ll feel better if you finally do.  

Flat tires must be changed.    Life isn’t always easy.   For anyone on the road.   Open the trunk.  Get out the wrench.   Try and laugh about it.

Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps; for he is the only animal that is struck with the difference between what things are and what they ought to be.
                         – William Hazlitt (1778-1830)