Do it yourself kind of girl

My dad has always been real gung-ho about fixing things himself. The dryer's broken or the computer or the camera, he'd read up about it, order the parts and just fix it himself. (he's particularly proud of the camera) It was under this "fix it yourself" regime I grew up. By the time I was in high school I could do most of the basic maintenance cars need by myself and I had even replaced the clutch (with much assistance from my dad) in our Saturn. It's time consuming and hard but fun, cheaper and gives you a sense of self accomplishment.

While talking about daily plans with a friend the other day they mentioned that they were taking their car in to get the oil changed. My world stopped, people do that? Really? "Why don't you just do that yourself?" Was my immediate response. He responded with, that he knew how, having been taught in boyscouts, and had done it twice (when he was fifteen) but that his family didn't have any tools. To this I replied get me the oil filter and I'll do it for you. I mean really, it takes like half an hour... So we went and got an oil filter, few things of new oil, jacked up his car and crawled under the hood. I located what I believed to be the bolt on the engine for draining oil and went to work trying to get it off.

It wouldn't come off. We tried for maybe 15min before I made an emergency call to Dad just to make sure I wasn't messing up. I wasn't. Part of the reason could have been we were trying with a size slightly too big because the size we needed was missing (BTW - Grandpa your 13mm is missing) another reason could have been that the mechanics particaly welded it on. Eventually, after running over to his house in search of a 13mm and double teaming the stupid bolt it came off. What should have been half an hour turned into an epic sixty minutes of frustration but it was fun.

- ps. Grandma, we stayed in the drive way the whole time and we were careful not to get oilstains everywhere. Please don't be too upset.

-pps. Yes, the guy was Jason. How sad is that? At least he knows more about bikes and has promised to do some much needed maintanence on mine.