An Explanation
I am wearing jeans at work. Anyone who has discussed my place of work with me in any detail will know that this is Not Acceptable. I, however, argue that I have a good reason for my rather casual attire.
See, yesterday it was a lovely day: sunny, warm (for November), with a perfectly blue sky. Mid-afternoon I decided I’d take a little drive to visit and have dinner with my parents. Not only was it such a lovely day, but I hadn’t seen or spoken with my family very much in the past weeks, and hadn’t seen my animals, and besides, I was being bombarded with requests for more Season 2 episodes of Farscape. It was to be a trip of just a few hours; I’d home in time to wash my dishes and get my clothes out of the laundry and get to bed in time for work the next morning.
What was also handy about this trip was that I needed some help putting air in my (well, Siro’s) tires. It is not a hard task, I know, but was something that I’d been wanting to do for weeks, owing to the fact that I could not get the little caps off the air valves. I blamed this on my ineffective child-sized hands and thought little more of the matter.
Enlisting my father’s help, I discovered why I hadn’t been able to get the little caps off: when I had my tires replaced, some genius in the tire store put all the hubcaps on wrong so that they pressed the air valves into the rims. The removal of the hubcaps required considerable force—again, more than my child-sized hands could generate. Well, once the hubcaps were off, putting air in the tires was no big deal … until the removal of the fourth hubcap made something start … hissing. Something as in the tire. Hissing as in leaking air at a furious rate.
It seemed that in one tire out of the four, the bending of the air valve caused the valve to crack, so that when the hubcap was removed and the crack was exposed, the tire thus lost any ability to hold air. Delightful. Luckily, tire air valves are only a few dollars—a bit of a pain to replace, but only a few dollars. However, it was at that point 6 PM on a Sunday, and no place that carried air valves within an hour’s drive of New House was open.
I was suddenly the owner of a three-wheeled car.
Now Siro has a spare tire. But, being an economy car, the spare is also best described as an economy tire. Not something I could drive far on, even had I desired it.
Thus the plan was hatched: I had to stay at New House overnight, borrow another vehicle while Siro was in the tire store, drive to work and come back afterwards. Great! However, I had only packed for a four-hour trip: in other words, no work clothes. An examination of my closet revealed my velvet renaissance dress, a summer silk Chinese dress, and a kicky pair of sweat pants.
So I wore the jeans. But, let me tell you, it’s going to be a while before I live down the comments.
