Monday, March 13, 2017

Like My Mom Always Told Me, "Honey, They're All Alike."

You'd think a man like Hick would know his way around a car. Hick LOVES cars. Always has. His first job, at the age of 13, was working at a gas station for all the soda and candy he could eat. He loves to tinker on a vehicle. A red-letter day for him would be kicking back in front of the TV to watch 12 hours of the Barrett Jackson auto auction. Hick knows his cars. Can tell you the year, make, and model just from looking at a fin or a bumper. Knows the year model changes occurred. And why.

Val knows more about cars than Hick when it comes to common sense. Like when she walked out of the garage to get in A-Cad for the start of Casinopalooza. Yes. Val had to walk through the garage to get into the car. Heh, heh. Surely you don't think Hick built a two-car garage big enough for two cars. Okay. Technically, he did. Unless you expect to have room to open the car doors without hitting the wall.

Anyhoo...I walked out and looked at the front end of A-Cad.

"That passenger side tire is too low."

"Val. The tires are fine."

"Not when the bottom looks flat."

"The tires expand as you drive. Of course they're going to look low when they're cold. I just drove it Sunday. The tires had 25 pounds of air in them when I started. And by the time I got to Genius's College Town, they had 33. See? They heat up as you drive. Just like I told you."

"I understand physics. But it's been 76 degrees. This is not a matter of the tires being so cold that there's a 7-pound difference when they heat up. Besides, 33 ISN'T 35."

"Val. The tires are fine." 

"On the side of the door, and in the manual, it says 'Inflate tires to 35 pounds.' Not to 25 pounds because they're going to heat up to 35. Nope. It says 'Inflate tires to 35 pounds.' I'm pretty sure whoever makes the cars has looked into this, and knows that tires heat up as you drive."

"There's no talking to you!"

It didn't help matters when, on the third leg of Casinopalooza, when the ex-mayor was riding right behind me, I said, "Don't you think this tire looks a little low?"

"Not really. It looks okay to me."

You guys always stick together, don't you? I didn't bother trying to reason with him.

16 comments:

  1. You were outnumbered over this one. At least you didn't end up with a flat tire.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That is a matter of perspective. We had a flat tire all the way to Oklahoma and back. The bottom side was flat. I noticed every time I got into or out of the car. I am certain that it needs air. 25 lb is not the owner-manual decree of 35 lb.

      Delete
  2. I know, I know. I took my car into the dealership on our first cold day because my dashboard WARNING WARNING WARNING system told me the tires were low. My service guy patiently filled up all four tires but then gave me the lecture about how cold tires inflate as they get warm through driving. By the way, did you know they have some kind of device where they can hook a hose up to each tire at the same time and inflate all four of them at once? I sure didn't and I was flat amazed. At least it got that alert system to shut up.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Even T-Hoe warns like that on a cold day, and I know it's just a COLD DAY. Like in the 20s or below. But on this morning in question, the temps were NOT cold, nor had they been on the day that Hick was talking about the tires warming up. It has been in the 70s here!

      I did not know that you can air up all 4 tires at once. Hick worked at a service station in his younger days, and an old lady asked him to change the air in her tires. He told her it wasn't necessary, and she said she'd give him $5 if he did it. He told his boss, who said, "If that's what the lady wants, then do it for her."

      Delete
  3. I have a bad feeling about this...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. We were safe on the trip. The tire is still low. If I can get my special parking place at the convenience store this week, I'll put some air in there. Too bad if some lame-o with bad knees wants to walk up that concrete ramp thingy. I hope they're good at Double Dutch with an air hose.

      Delete
  4. Men--they're all alike!!

    ReplyDelete
  5. It's spooky how similar Hick and SD are. SD will tell you what year a car was made just by the colour AND he knows when they changed the wheel design or fitted an extra - all kinds of stuff. How do they keep all this stuff in their heads Val, it confuses me - there really is very little in mine!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. This is the reason we have to tell them to breathe in/breathe out. They have too many car specs in their head. No room for daily activities and common sense.

      I am sure you have enough stuff in your head to keep your skull from collapsing. At least you know that those cohorts of yours are a bit on the eccentric side.

      Delete
  6. Fishducky is right. They ARE all alike. And when one of them offers up an idiotic excuse/story, the rest of 'em will blindly support him.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yeah. They stick together like fish in an aquarium. Sometimes I like to tap on their glass to see them all panic and switch directions.

      Delete
    2. Come to think of it, they may be right about that air pressure in the cold thing.

      Delete
    3. My gripe is not with their theory about the tires heating up, but with what the manual says to inflate the tires to. It doesn't say to drive the car around for a while and then inflate them to a certain pressure.

      I can't speak for Sioux, but I am well aware that molecules move more slowly in the cold, so matter contracts, and faster in the heat, so matter expands. The exception being WATER, because of the polar molecules with the hydrogen bonds that make it expand when it freezes.

      My point is that recommended tire pressure for my car is 35 pounds. Not 25 pounds so the tires can expand to 35 as they are driven and heat up. Nope. It says 35 pounds. Which I would assume they mean at "standard room temperature" which is about 72.

      So my tires should be at 35 pounds of pressure before driving, as long as the weather is moderate. If temps drop into the 40s or 30s or 20s, of course they will read lower.

      Delete
  7. Replies
    1. When it benefits THEM! That's their selective hearing. You can ask something five times and they say you mumble so they didn't understand and didn't answer. But if you mutter anything about them while they've got the TV volume cranked up to 45, and you're in the kitchen with ice clanking out of FRIG II...they can hear it like a Great Grey Owl zeroing in on a mouse scurrying under two feet of snow.

      Delete