I've used this image before, but what the heck. Here it is again.
The weather man on the TV showed an ominous swirl of clouds heading in our direction with much precipitation hidden in the swirl. I figured now was a good time to get some new wipers on my car. Of course, I’d been putting it off FOR-EV-AH. A job like that is:
A) Totally a boy job (and I am not a boy) and
B) A pain in the ass.
Hence, the procrastination. I also have a vague, repressed, traumatic memory of trying to put wipers on my car a few years ago. It’s a blur, but I have flash backs of curse words and possibly some tears were involved. So, why would I want to go there again? In the name of traffic safety, I decided to go.
I was home nursing a back pain that was a total pain in the ass when I saw the weather report and if I wanted to go out at all in the next few rainy days, I would need new wipers. Forty naps and some muscle relaxers later, I decided to head out to the auto supply store – if that is even what it is called. A boy would know what it is called – that’s why IT IS A BOY JOB, people.
I finally landed in the Auto Zone. A nice man in the Zone helped me to find the correct wipers for my auto. First he suggested $60 worth of wipers and in my haze I said Why so much, Zone guy? I just need something to wipe the water off. Don’t you have some cheap balsa wood or maybe a couple of long chopsticks I could have?
Okay, I didn’t really say that, but something more like WTF $60, Auto Dude! No, no, no! And I’m so tired you need to hurry up.
We then settled on $30 worth of blades. They are middle of the price-road German blades for my high maintenance German car. That worked for me.
Back in the Auto Zone parking lot, a city tree trimmer posse had completely blocked me in with their tree trucks. The tree they were trimming looked almost done, so I gave them a five minute grace period while I studied the non-existent wiper installing instructions on the box, but then I realized they were taking down the ENTIRE tree and I really needed to get home and nap.
I flagged down the tree guy who obliged by moving his tree truck about three inches and declared, YOU CAN DO IT -COME ON, LADY! And I’m like, I AM TIRED AND REALLY RELAXED, TREE DUDE, AND TURNING MY HEAD LEFT AND RIGHT TO REVERSE OUT OF HERE TOTALLY SUCKS FOR MY BACK AND DID I MENTION I’M NOT SUPPOSED TO BE DRIVING RIGHT NOW? He waved me through a tight space like one of those guys guiding a plane into the gate at the airport (what are they called?? I’m sure A BOY would know) and it was awesome!
I made it home before the rain started. Rather than take a nap, I thought I should get the new wipers on ASAP. I took the original driver’s side wiper off without looking at how it was actually on there, which turned out to be a big mistake, because the German car wiper people apparently decided to mess with the heads of any novice installers; they created the Rubix Cube of wipers.
In a hazy, muscle-relaxed nutshell, I got the new wipers on. At one point I sent serious visual vibes to the guy who lives across the way. He works on cars all the time and a job like this would probably take him 30 seconds, whereas I was pretty much a walking NAP, mentally having lunch and filing my nails while contemplating this project.
But then, dear reader, I did it. I solved the Rubix Cube of wipers. There is a thing you have to press down in a geometrically wrong way to make the other thing go on to the other thing that then makes the whole thing an actual wiper! Voila!
The hazy point of this whole post is this: I was raised (in my experience) to be independent, to know how to take care of myself and need NO ONE. This has worked for and against me: FOR me in the sense that I can install windshield wipers, replace brake lights, capture giant spiders and put them outside and AGAINST me in the way that sometimes I forget to let others do for me and how that letting them do things for me makes them feel needed.
The other point is that there are some jobs that are just meant for men. It’s just a gender fact. And while I feel exuberant at installing my new wipers after wanting to give up many times and after getting ubiquitous black car junk under my nails, on my shirt, and in my hair, what I really wanted was an awesome man to step up and install the wipers in 30 seconds, after I told him how much I NEEDED him to do that.
It’s great to be self sufficient, but sometimes it gets really OLD without a boy to do the boy jobs. I will happily do the girl jobs. HAPPILY. That is my real point. BOY changes windshield wipers and GIRL will use her awesome super-girl powers to make his world wonderful.
On tail end of a long day, I will end this rambling post whose point was, I fear, lost about 300 words ago…
Miss MoL
PS: The other job I need a boy for is putting air in the car tires. I’m always terrified that the tire will explode, therefore I spend my days wasting fuel on probably under-inflated tires. Sigh.
PPS: Am I really STILL writing this post???