Janingalina

who ever writes that in a subject line? me, apparently.  

 

you know how they have to make everything in Germany complicated? like they can't have All-Season tires, they've got to have summer and winter tires? and if you don't have your winter tires on in the winter and you're in any kind of accident, then you're like automatically at fault, at least partially. yeah. i haven't let that bother me to this point, but it's snowy and i'm heading to the alps this weekend, it's probably time to put the winter tires on.

 

last night i pulled picknick's winter tires down out of the attic - it's a trapdoor/ladder affair, and i have to say, a little rickety. so i'm always nervous and extra careful when i'm taking big unwieldy things up or down the ladder. it went ok, but was a lot of work. i felt like an ant making lots of trips to get the whole leaf back to the nest.

 

first i pull down the trapdoor, crawl up into the attic. crawl back down when i realize that one of the lightbulbs is out and i can't really see up there. cannibalize a lightbulb from my apartment to replace the attic bulb. find my tires in the far corner of the attic.

 

take tires from attic corner to the top of the ladder (1, 2, 3, 4).

 

with a deathgrip on the left side of the ladder, brace tire against shoulder and side of head, hold with right hand, descend ladder (1, 2, 3, 4).

 

tires piled in the entrance to my apartment. take tires down stairs one at a time (1, 2, 3, 4). piling in entryway of the apartment, bottom of the stairwell.

 

pull car around so that it's parked illegally, but not too far from the door of my apartment. run tires out to the car, stack carefully in trunk (1, 2, 3, 4). try to close the liftgate.  fail.  grr.  reposition.  fail.  grr.  reposition.  success!

 

this morning the mechanic at the dealership asks, "would you like us to store your summer tires here for you?" me: "You would do that? Oh God, yes!"

 

it's a small fee, but this way i don't have to run through above process 3 more times when i put summer tires up in the attic, pull summer tires down to get them re-installed, and put winter tires back up in the attic. 4 times! because i'm going to give this lease car back in the fall, so i'd need to pull the winter tires down again for the giveback.

 

so, money massively well spent. :) i'm a happy customer and i haven't even gotten the car back yet.

 

blognote: a 2008 roundup is coming.  really.  i'm going to try to revitalize this space a little in the coming year.  please bear with me, i have really great intentions.  Thanks so much for reading.  :)