Wednesday, June 28, 2017

About that Confidence Thing



Or, more precisely, a competence thing.


Feeling competent is... I don't want to call it a trigger point, but it is definitely an issue point. I so rarely feel competent at, well, anything. And that, in turn, makes me anxious. Which then just leads itself to the food aspect more. Which usually results in me either working out or clamping down to try to feel like damnit, at least I can control something. 


Cue my panic when, on the drive back from the concert, my tire light goes on "somewhere" in Ohio. I say "somewhere," because I am still legitimately not sure where I was. 

But I was two miles from a service plaza. 

There were a small handful of thoughts that kept churning through my brain during those two miles. 
  • OMG the tire is going to blow off the car and I'm gonna cause an accident and I'm gonna die.
  • I know it's just a slow leak, because I filled the tire on Friday. But OMG I'm gonna die.
  • Shit. This is going to be expensive.
This service plaza,  as it turns out, only had a very old machine labeled "Air." Me being me, I'm used only these days to the nice automated ones that Get Go has. That turn on automatically, and turn off when pressure is reached. 

It turns out that when you're an idiot about the old school ones, you can end up deflating your entire tire in a matter of minutes. 

Which, if you're like me, is when you sit down on the curb, debate crying, and pull out your phone. And think that it's really a shame that you can't call AAA or the VW Roadside Assistance program from a service plaza and say, "Hey, I'm sorry I'm an idiot, but I'm somewhere in Ohio, and I just deflated my tire using an air pump, and um, can you help me figure this out?" 

Fortunately, I have an iPhone. Which means I have Google. And I could see that this is actually not an uncommon problem if the pump isn't fully clamped on to the valve. So yay for problem solving. 

Because I didn't have a tire gauge with me, I wasn't sure how long to fill it. But I figured when I heard a "pop!" that it was a sign it was probably at least filled enough to get me back to Pittsburgh. 

But fortunately, I've also learned that if you can find experts, life gets a little easier. So I called a tire shop, explained, and got an appointment set up for Monday night. 

The car, of course, wanted to get the last laugh. The signal was still on when I restarted my car, but I was proud of me. Instead of panicking or crying, I had a fleeting moment of "The salesdude said something about hitting the reset button. Maybe I'll try that."

And sure enough. It worked. 

I may feel incompetent in cars, but at least sometimes the trick of "What's that button do?" still works.


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