who knew

Ok, I need to warn both of you reading my blog that the next three or four posts are going to be unbelievably lame.  As my beloved has revealed, we are heading on a week long trip with almost ninety of our closest friends to spend Spring Break in God’s country – otherwise known as Colorado.  So, for the next forty-eight hours, I will know nothing but to-do lists, phone calls, packing and repacking, and things I have already forgotten that I’m suppose to do.  Then I will be driving a bazillion miles on nearly zero hours of sleep, arrive at camp, and get our week of Love, Sex, and Dating underway.  I’m not saying that I’m not going to post.  I’ve made a commitment and I plan on sticking to it.  I AM saying that the quality of the posts, which is already pretty marginal, is going to be particularly suspect.

To make matter worse, once I get out there, I’m fairly certain that internet access is going to be close to non-existent.  However, through the magic of iPhone and the wonderful WordPress app, you will be getting little glimpses into our week.

Now, on to “who knew.” 

press play…

Today was historic.  I did something today that I have never done in my entire life.  The sense of shame that I feel over not having done this in the thirty plus years I’ve taken up space on the earth is palpable, and if it weren’t for my over-riding feelings of self-congratulatory pride this day would have gone by un-noticed.

Around 1pm (CST), I changed the oil on the BMV.

After you have recovered from reading the last sentence, you should know that I found the entire process relatively easy.  I’ve known for some time that changing the oil on a car isn’t brain surgery, but after paying $40 earlier in the morning to have the same procedure done on the family truckster, I was determined to never get fleeced again.

Now while the changing was straight forward enough, that doesn’t mean that there weren’t mishaps.  The old oil started draining into the pan thing (that’s the technical name for the receptacle that catches the old oil), but after the stream of oil subsided, I hadn’t quite positioned the pan thing properly and some oil spilled out onto the ground.  It wasn’t the Exxon Valdez, but I felt guilty nonetheless.

Then there was the issue of the oil filter.  I’m fairly sure that the Incredible Hulk must have screwed it on, because despite my brawniness, it wouldn’t budge.  Nor had I demonstrated enough foresight to have purchased an oil filter wrench, and the only vehicle I had at my disposal had been emptied of its oil moments earlier.  So no running to my neighborhood Advance Auto Parts to make it all better.  Thank goodness for Google and the discovery of the screwdriver trick.  If you are in the dark about the screwdriver trick (and you probably are), then you can Google it yourself or ask me about it face-to-face.  I think it is the car mechanic’s equivalent of the secret handshake.

Ten minutes after the screwdriver maneuver, the parts were all back where they needed to be and the the engine was awash in brand new oil and ready to head out west.  While the process was relatively painless, I won’t be hanging my car mechanic shingle out anytime soon.