I figured today would be pretty average; I had nothing going except a short trip to the mall to spend some cash because I was feeling so inclined. After an hour or two I left the place with bags and a mango smoothie in hand. I left through the Wal-mart entrance into the bright sunshine–it was an unusually warm day for this time of year. I think the forecasts indicated that we’d hit a high of 22°C. Anyway, as I absent-mindedly fished for my keys I heard an old woman speaking loudly in a Chinese accent. I didn’t really think much of it until I realized that she was trying to get my attention. I turned to her to see what was up. “Mai ca~!! Mai ca~!!” she exclaimed as she pointed off in the distance. It took my a moment to realize she was trying to convey a message that something was wrong with her car. It took me a small moment to decide what to do. I could have just left her pretending not to understand, but in the end I just went with her.

As we approached her car, there was her husband standing there with a car jack on the ground pointing at a flat tire. When I saw that I was kind of relieved. I figured that if it was a problem with their car battery, I would have been useless. It’s not that I’m good at changing tires or anything. In fact, I’ve never done it before in my life. Although it was demonstrated to me at a seminar I attended at the Toyota Dealership a month or two after I purchased my car. I was hazy on the details, but I figured I’d give it my best try. I tried communicating to the couple, but they weren’t understanding a word. All I could do was sigh loudly and smile. I bent down and started working on jacking the car up.

Now, at the seminar I remember them talking about placing the jack in between two notches under the frame. The purpose of the notches seemed to be that it pointed out a spot on the frame that could be jacked up. Anyway, I looked under and only found one notch. I though “oh shit, what now?” I just went with it. I placed the jack in between the notch and the wheel. I started cranking the handle. As the car lifted, my confidence kind of soared. All I could think was “Holy shit! I’m doing it!” Once it was high off the ground, I took the wrench to the nuts and started turning the handle. Thing is, the nuts were still tight to the wheel. I tried stepping on the wrench to get the nut loose. That’s when it happened: THWOMP. The jack tipped and the car collapsed. Oops. That’s when I remembered that you have to loosen the nuts first before jacking it up or else you’ll risk having the jack tip and the car falling.

I spent the next few minutes trying to lower the jack, but I couldn’t figure out which direction to crank the thing. My mind was thinking about too many things at once, but mostly about my failed attempt. As I was adjusting the jack, a guy with a Caribbean accent came to help out. I think the wife flagged him down. It turns out he was a mechanic. He started helping out. The couple had also picked up another Chinese person with a grasp of English so that she could translate. It was suddenly a group affair. The wife told the translator that she recognized him from a dancing group. He said that he indeed was in the group. Small world.

So, the mechanic started loosening the nuts and the husband started motioning to the jack first. I tried to motion that it was OK because he had to loosen the thing first. After he loosened the nuts, he had me crank the jack to raise the car. As it was going up, I told the mechanic that I kind of knew what I was doing but was glad he showed up. He just told me that it’s not hard to do but you needed to “cut your teeth” and experience doing it first hand. My reply was that I was just glad it wasn’t with my car. Once the was raised he removed the nuts and then the tire. While it was off, I put the spare tire on. He put the nuts back on and I started cranking the car down. Once it was down he tightened the nuts, and just like that we were done. Craaazy!

The husband took two bottles of water from the trunk to allow us to rinse our hands which had become really greasy. Water didn’t help much, but after using some tissues they weren’t so bad. Through the translator we were told that the wife was coming back with coffee. And there she was with a tray of three large coffees from McDonalds. It was a small gesture, but the gratitude was obvious. I was trying to juggle my bags, the smoothie which had melted by then, and the hot coffee which was spilling on my hands. I just smiled and shook everyone’s hand. The woman conveyed that maybe she could dance with the mechanic next time as a thank you. Laughs were had. I was still burning my hands.

Xie xie! (Thank you!) That was the only Chinese could come up with. I started walking away back to my car. My head was buzzing at having done such an unexpected good deed. As I neared my car, I realized that I should have said something like zai jian (goodbye…I think). It didn’t matter. I was just beaming. I drove out of the lot confident that I could change a tire and that the couple would make it home.

I felt entirely and completely manly.

Shortly, I was back on the road with greasy hands burned by coffee, drinking a melted smoothie. Even so, all was right with the world.