##Air Up My Own Damn Tires

[Tags: DIY, capitalism (pro and con), feelings and stuff]

There are deals you will never get in this life, even though
they are part of the sale. The one that sticks in my mind
the most, probably because it has to do with food, is
unlimited soup, salad, and break-sticks at a participating
Olive Garden.  Since they the waiter only comes by every
15 minutes or so, how on earth are you going to get beyond
two?  Additionally, experienced waiters know how to do
things with tone and even body language to make it even
more embarrassing to ask for . . . what is implied by the
special.

"Do you want . . . another soup?"

I mean, yes, that's what I was thinking when I said I
wanted the unlimited special, but, yes, we'll be here all
damn day if I get the amount I would like. And, yes, it is
easy to spin it that it would be my fault if that happened.
I may be on the spectrum, but I have learned that certain
glances mean that time should be valued.  No one is
interested in reading the situation the way I am and then 
making a principled stand against bait-and-switch shenanigans.

They aren't really selling unlimited soup or salad; they are 
selling the idea of unlimited soup or salad -- and you should 
have enjoyed the idea better like any normie optimist.

Here's another deal you can't get, at least not as male or
(I presume, using nothing but pessimism) a minority: you
cannot get the free service of your tires aired up at a
participating Firestone.

I tried to convince my white female wife that this was true,
but she thought that if we got in near when they opened and
let them know we could leave it with them all day, it would
happen.

The real test of a mental model is how predictive it is. As
a dark, hardcore misanthrope and pessimist I love to be
proven wrong. But in this case, I was correct.  No way to
squeeze me in, I can make an appointment for next Tuesday
or Wednesday. And, yes, I get what a schmuck, hell, barely
any kind of man at all for not just doing my tire myself, even
though I buy tires from you and at point of sale you let me
know this is a free service, a real benefit to getting a
tire with them.

This happened early in the morning, and I must admit I was
a little crestfallen. I like DIY, working with hand tools,
and learning new things. I even said to my wife after my
failure that this was something like a 2-3 hour project from
research to acquisition of tools and knowledge, to done, so
what was the block?

Well, it so happens that airing up my tires is one of those
things one of my parents, in this case my dad,  attempted to
teach me, but got so visibly frustrated when it didn't
instantly work that I felt the molten rage underneath the
surface, gave up on that, and put a mental block of my own
on the the whole process that has lasted to this day. My
parents were Baby Boomers of the actual generation, not the
stupidity of labels in internet culture.  On top of that
they were working class people whose lives did not go the
way they wanted.  This made them among the worst teachers I
have ever been around, at least in terms of skills.  If the
point was to spread feelings of dread and worthlessness,
and the kind of helplessness that makes you just want to
give up, then they were pretty successful at conveying
the curriculum.

While that kind of stuff does have its own gravitational
pull, and some times on the oddest, most specific of things,
we do have the gifts of insight, reflection, forgiveness and
bursts of pure will -- the last one is the most overrated,
but sometimes needed to get the first step forward, which
it wasn't in this case; I just needed to notice the block
and reflect on the why.

So. . . with my apologies to the gopher and gemini, it was
to the web to figure out what kind of tools I would need
and what kind of pitfalls I might run into airing up my own
dang tires.  The internet worked as intended as it told me
that there exists a machine that can air the tire and stop
at a pre-determined pressure level, it is only $75 and you
can pick it up today at Lowe's.

And, yes, I picked up that machine at Lowe's. I, who try to
make $2.00 razor cartridges last for years.

=>gemini://gemlog.blue/users/NetCandide/1632882235.gmi (extending razor life).

Doing this task correctly will prevent me from a possibly
greater expense and the indignity of going back to the same
bastards that began this whole situation.  Also, having the
least amount of frustration in the process gets me past
feelings of weakness quicker.  You can, and must, put some
price on self-respect, but $75 is well within my budget,
with some of the cost deferred by less wasted time, etc.

But to be clear, the real reason is the self respect.

== 

I'd love to hear from people.  My email is the handle minus
"net" (so, a work by Voltaire that starts with "c"), at 
sdf.org.  

While we're adding boiler plate: this work is in the public
domain.  Do what you want with it.