Come-on, flat, make my day!
Here are two real-life situations:
Scene 1. I get a flat tyre outside Wolseley after a weekend in the Cederberg. It is the middle of the day and incredibly hot. With me in the car are my two teenage daughters and three year-old son.
I get out and gather my kit. My daughters are watching me with some scepticism: They know I wasn’t born with a Leatherman in my hand. My son is in tears: This was his first camping weekend, and without Mom.
All eyes are on me. Now I know how Jack van der Schyff must have felt before that fatal kick against the Lions in ’55. I start loosening the first bolt. But it won’t budge. Okay, I try the next one. Stuck fast. Alright, the third. Immovable. And the fourth…
I’m mortified. “Some guy at the tyre shop must have tightened them with a power ratchet wrench,” I say. (My daughters claim I used stronger language than this.)
Things start to go downhill from there. The girls are sent into the veld to look for a big rock. I use this to bang the wheel spanner, and manage to loosen three bolts. Just as I am about to tackle the last one, a police car pulls up.
Two cheerful patrolmen get out. One goes over and squats next to my tyre. He grabs the wheel spanner and loosens the final bolt. And then the two of them change my tyre for me.
My reputation is in tatters, even though I’ve told the kids at least 50 times: I was just about to loosen that last bolt myself, and I would have changed the tyre without the policemen’s help.
Scene 2. Three months later… Kakamas’ main road on a Saturday morning. We get another flat tyre, coincidentally the same right rear tyre.
My wife and one of our daughters, with the little one on her hip, immediately set off to find out how much it will cost to sleep over at the hotel we’ve just passed. The other daughter stays behind to watch me, possibly with some morbid fascination.
But this time I’m ready: I’m armed with a telescopic wheel spanner that I bought at Outdoor Warehouse before we left.
With a capability that surprises even me, I loosen the bolts one by one without any difficulty, thanks to the long retractable handle. By the time the rest of the family has returned, the vehicle is ready. “Ready to go?” I ask nonchalantly, leaning against the car.
Now I know how Chris Barnard felt after the first heart transplant.
Go! says: Don’t waste time with a short-handled wheel-nut spanner. A decent long-handled one costs only about R100.
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