Friday, May 1, 2015

pancake

What do you do when your Westy gets a flat?
 
Her first pancake!
It was so tragic. I swear I had a photo of how it looked before this, note that this is already jacked up off of the rim. It had been sitting in a desolate puddle of angst and woe after a fateful trip to the super bumpy fiesta island over spring break. I'm so tired of apologizing for my bad photography, though! Use your imagination. Geez.


Anyway.

What do you do when your Westy has a flat? You contact Ellie, of course. And Ellie immediately responds with a slew of encouraging and empathetic texts, followed by a 6 page document from her "do it yourself repairs" bible to illustrate just exactly what to do next.


The manual was so great! So helpful! So straightforward and logical and divine. We immediately set to work, just a few weeks later.


The miracle is that we found the jack. and it was the old-timey jack that you just pop into the jack-hole and crank clockwise to lift the ol' girl right off her haunches.


The plan was simple: just unscrew the bolt from the spare tire hidey hole thing to see what we had to work with, then either change the mo-fo or drive to the tire store before replacing the flat.

Houston, we have a problem.





We called Mr. Man. He came, he saw, he conquered.


He was all: "Are you sure you want me to use this jack thing?"
Do your thang, Mr. Man


zoot zoot
We were so happy to find that the spare was in perfect condition and Mr. Man plumped her up with air and we were good to go. We piled right in for a joyride, natch.




You guys all wish you had an Ellie sister, don't you?

You do have AAA though, right?

It was a dark, dark moment when we realized what we'd done. Mr. Man with his friendly disposition and encyclopedic knowledge of all things auto had just signed off on our service call and driven away. And our girl was all "rrrrrRRRRRrrrrrr" but no start. Permission to call granted, sister.

I answered the phone with: "There's a happy ending"

See the thing about Westy is that she is a strapping, unstoppable beast, but sometimes she just doesn't feel like starting.

But sometimes she does...

A while later I was having a happy moment with my boy, and recognizing that those particular moments have been somewhat scarce as of late, I acknowledged my gratitude and thought...

Imma try the westy.

And she started right up.

I tried to honk the horn in celebratory joy, but sometimes westy just doesn't want to honk.

She's always down for a joyride, though.

The joy is palpable!

Aw, Westy.

3 comments:

Beth said...

Love this so, so much.

I DO wish I had Ellie for a sister. You lucky, J! You super lucky in the sister department, obviously. "Permission to call" is epic.

The "Imma try the Westy" moment is gold too, especially your associating the action with gratitude for the good moments with your boy.

Westy rules, even if honkless. Look forward to seeing her badass at the beach soemtime soon.

xoxoxoxoxo,
Beth

PS, maybe we should driver 'er to Santa Clara! (KIDDING!)

jacquie said...

hahah, we'd pretty much have to leave now

xo
J

Me, You, or Ellie said...

*Mistah*, of all the people, fixed Westy's horn. Mistah! It's a really easy fix, apparently, underneath in the front driver's side . . . wait, do you want me to send you photos of the manual??

I love this *so* much, Jacqueline, and not only because I feel the deep, deep love. I love it so much because you are back in your Westy, right where you belong.

This is one of my favorite posts of yours ever.

Now get in that Westy, if it can handle the weight of that gigantic puppy of yours, and go on a joy ride, wouldja? We'll join you, over here on our least, least coast.

Love you desperately.

Ellie.