Drove into my local gas station to put air in a low tire
I was late, as usual, and hoping to get in and out quickly. However, there was a small car ahead of me. Well, I thought, how long can one little car take? Bwwaaa hhaaaa haaaaa - an infinite amount of time if the little car contains two teenage girls who clearly have never even watched someone use an air compressor.One girl was on her cell phone leaving messages with her Mom and anyone else she could think of - "How do you tell what the tire pressure is?" "How do we tell when there's enough air?" Then, she squealed in fright every time her friend actually turned on the air - which made a lot of noise because they couldn't figure out how to get a good connection with the tire valve.
I can usually fill all 4 tires for one set of quarters
Take all the valve covers off first, have the tire gauge ready - you know the drill. I realized as the girls fed the machine for the THIRD time (and they were only on their SECOND tire) that if I was ever going to get out of that gas station, I would have to teach them.Replacing my 'irritated motorist' face with my 'helpful older relative' face
I approached the second girl who was valiantly trying to wrestle the air nozzle onto a valve stem while the hose was trying to retract itself. I pulled the hose out, showed her how to stand on it so that she has plenty of slack; showed her how to hold the nozzle onto the valve stem and adjust the angle so the air is actually going into the tire and then showed her how to check the tire pressure.My reward was getting my air for free!
In the end, the girls had to feed a FOURTH set of quarters into the machine to finish up - but then they thanked me and motored off. Since, I had been waiting for what seemed like forever - I quickly grabbed the compressor hose and filled up my low tire, checked and filled a second tire and was done!I don't remember the first time I used an air compressor to fill up a tire. I remember driving in with a rubber raft to fill up in the summers and even that was 30 years ago!
Too funny!
Don't you love it when you can change from irritated to helpful? Those girls will probably remember you for a long time!
ReplyDeleteI never did master filling all my tires on one or two quarters. So I cheated and got a tire inflater that plugs into the cigarette lighter in the truck. Even I can do a decent job with that! :)
It did feel good - I try to remember that while we can't change what happens to us in life, we can change our attitudes about it. One of those things I need to keep reminding myself all the time.
ReplyDeleteI got one of those tire inflaters too - wish I'd had it back in the rubber raft days!