Thud, thud, thud it went. I put on the brakes and let out a soft sigh as I stepped out of the car. I hoped against hope that I was wrong. But no, there it was…a sad looking flat tire.
I groaned. This isn’t exactly the best of places, I was in one of the side roads of Manila-at least there was still some daylight and it wasn’t raining. And, after more than ten years of driving around on my own, and with lots of lessons from my dad along the way, I was more than ready for this catastrophe. And so, I parked in the safest place I could find in the vicinity (level ground, no passing traffic on the side of the tire I needed to change, fairly conspicuous to other pedestrians so that evil elements who may take advantage of the situation would think twice) popped open my trunk, made sure that I had pocketed my car keys and locked all valuables inside the car.
Here are some things that an empowered (by circumstance or by choice), petite, skirt-wearing woman needs to have in the trunk of her car:
1. An electronic air pump that can be plugged into the car’s cigarette lighter slot (I have often used this to inflate a flat tire so that I could drive the car to the nearest gas station and have a gas attendant assist me in changing the tire. Unfortunately, I had forgotten to reload the pump after the car’s last maintenance check-up.)
2. A well-inflated spare tire
3. A hydraulic jack (this will take the grunt work out of jacking up your car)
4. A tire wrench or lug wrench
5. Gloves, failing that, hand sanitizer and lots of tissue paper
First, I brought all of the above mentioned materials out of the trunk. As soon as I started loosening the lug nuts of the tire, the men folk who happened to be in the vicinity offered to help. This can be a tricky call…I tend to gauge the one offering help before allowing them to do so. Even when I do accept help from “friendly” strangers, I tend to oversee the whole process not out of distrust but mostly because most of those who happen to be standing around when I get a flat tire don’t really have all that much experience changing car tires. I stand there, making sure that the jack is put in the right position (and yes, there is a right and wrong place to position a jack…if you position it in the wrong place, you run the risk of getting a large dent on your car’s exterior), the lug nuts are tightened correctly (from one nut, to the nut opposite it and again until all the nuts are tightened).
Most important, know how to properly change a tire before you actually need to. Here are some handy instructions:
http://www.wikihow.com/Change-a-Tire
Any handy tips on what to do when you get a flat tire?
Have an extra 200 pesos and wave it when you have all the rest.