One of the things I detest most in life is dealing with car issues ... always have and always will. Maybe it's because my knowledge of the mechanical workings of my car is that I have to put gas in the tank and have the oil changed every so often or it won't continue to operate. I know nothing about spark plugs or sensors or fuses or radiators or timing belts or any of the plethora of other car-related terminology I've heard tossed about in conversations among car type guys and gals. I wish I could tell you that my lack of automotive intelligence has to do with a lack of training, but that would not be entirely true because my dad tried his best to teach me the basics of car maintenance and repair. Nope ... the reason I know nothing about car stuff is because I choose to know nothing about car stuff. And I choose to know nothing about car stuff because I really, really, really detest dealing with car issues. I want to get in my car, turn it on and drive wherever I need to go. It's a bad, bad day when one of those stupid warning lights comes on to signal that there's a problem with my car ... boy, oh, boy is that a bad, bad day indeed.
The last couple of times I've taken my beloved Subaru Legacy in for an oil change, the guys have mentioned to me that I would need to buy new tires soon. We all know that the use of the word "soon" in regard to buying new tires often means different amounts of time for different people, hence the reason I've been driving on very, very worn tires for the last few months. Well, my interpretation of the word "soon" ... and the fact that I knew that new tires were going to cost me upwards of $500 (that I didn't have, by the way) ... caused me to push my luck to the limit with every extra mile I logged. And I do mean pushed my luck to the very ultimate limit ... when the guys showed me my old tires yesterday after replacing them with a new set, one of them said, "I really don't know why one of these didn't blow out on you when you were driving 70 going down the highway." I didn't tell him, but the reason I finally decided I had to bite the bullet and get new tires was because when I was driving home from work on Friday, my car was shimmying so badly I thought I was going to have to pull over and have it towed. Yeah, yeah ... I know what you're thinking, but I managed to get 63,000 miles out of the original tires on my car, so there.
It only took driving a short distance when I left the tire place yesterday for me to realize just how bad my old tires must have been ... the difference in the ride, the handling and even the braking on my car was like night and day from what it had been just a few short hours earlier. Which, of course, me being me, made me start thinking about how true that is with so many things in life ... we put off fixing things or ignoring problems because we don't realize just how bad they really are. We take big chances with our relationships and our health and all kinds of other important areas of life by not doing what needs to be done to take care of them. When we just continue to ignore the worn out tires ... when we don't take the time to talk to the people we love or spend time with them ... when we don't notice that their hearts are dangerously close to blowing out ... when we think they will just keep rolling along without being cared for ... well, friends, that's every bit as dumb as me driving down the interstate every day on worn-out tires. No ... that's even dumber.
I had to go out and run several errands today and as I drove from one place to another, I kept thinking that my car felt like new again ... it's most definitely not, but the new tires sure do make it feel like it is. I'll leave you to think on that for a while ... all it took for my car to be special to me again, to feel new to me again, to make me proud of it again was for me to give it the tender loving care it needed. People are way more important than cars, friends ... way, way, way more. Think about it ... think about it indeed.
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