Categories: uncategorized
Date: 12 January 2007 00:08:45
My van got a puncture today. Now, changing a wheel is not one of my favourite activities at the best of times, but doing it in the pissing rain and a howling gale like we had today was no fun whatsoever.
First, I had to get the spare wheel out. This is underneath the van and is accessed by releasing a bolt just inside the rear doors. Now, the back of my van is a total mess. I work on the "washing machine" theory, which is that all the stuff thrown in at random simply revolves and that everything will eventually work its way to the top. Usually I'm lucky enough that whatever it is I need, however obscure, will be at the top of the pile just when I need it. The trouble with this is that things tend to cram themselves against the door, so I've managed to work a system where I only have to open one of the double doors , knowing full well that if I open both, then everything will fall out. Sadly, this was an occasion when both doors had to be opened so that I could get to the bolt. I slowly and carefully unpacked the stuff that looked the most precarious and very tentatively opened the second door. Everything seemed to stay in place. Most of the stuff I'd unpacked was perfectly safe to leave on the road at the rear of the van or on the pavement, but among this stuff was a rather expensive 24 volt drill, so I decided to put that on the floor in front of the driving seat for safe keeping - I know from experience that this sort of kit can walk very quickly before you can even blink. So far so good, so I started loosening the bolt.
It was still raining.
While I was doing this, all of a sudden several boxes fell out and landed on top of me. Some very un-Christian words were uttered at this point, but I carried on and retrieved the spare wheel.
It was still raining.
That done, it was now time to get the old wheel off. It was at this point that I discovered that I was parked too close to the kerb to fit the jack underneath the van, so I had to move about 9 inches out from the kerb. Of course, there was a 24v drill in the way which I had to take out. I moved the van replaced the drill and proceeded to jack the van up.
It was still raining.
As the front of the van very slowly left the ground, I heard a low rumble coming from the back and suddenly, there was a huge landslide of crap spilling out into the road, including a large tub of rat poison, the lid of which came off as it hit the ground. There were now rodenticide blocks all over the road, so I had to stop what I was doing in order to retrieve them before they could get eaten by a passing dog. Once they were all picked up and the lid firmly replaced, I was then able to carry on jacking up the van. Then my phone rang.
It was still bloody raining.
The call was from the office trying to pass a job to me that isn't even in my area. (This seems to be happening a lot since they closed down the branch office and "centralised" everything to a call centre in Wales. I managed to get rid of them and told them my predicament. I got the wheel off, replaced it with the spare, put the old one under the van, tightened the bolt and re-packed (if that's the right word) all the stuff that had fallen out in a more haphazard fashion that usual. No, re-packed isn't the right word at all - crammed everything in as though fitting a quart into a pint pot is probably a more accurate description. I really must tidy the back of my van sometime.
Anyway, everything was back in and I forced the doors shut.
It then stopped raining.