Lugnuts & Garland

The original plan was to take a vacation day on Friday and spend the day with my sister, Kelsey, who had also had a hard time finding her holiday cheer this year. Unfortunately, a few things came up at work and I had to go in for a "very important meeting". You can imagine how thrilled I was at losing another day of vacation because things at the office were at defcon: 4. But I had managed to block my entire afternoon to play with my sister so I was in a pretty good mood as I headed out the door that morning. I was listening to Mat Kearney's cd (sidebar: currently my FAVORITE cd and I can't stop listening to it. Go get it.) as I pulled out of the garage when suddenly there was an awful noise and some definite thumpage as I backed out. I got out of the car to discover that the front passenger side tire was as flat as I've ever seen any tire ever. (Even more flat than the tire that blew out on 6th Ave. the morning of my 27th birthday when I apparently hit a machete or something rather large and sharp.)

I, of course, could not be late for the "very important meeting" and freaked out just a bit. I promptly dropped a gigantic f-bomb while standing in my garage and then proceeded to use every curse word I know, though truthfully, none feels quite like a good f-bomb. Ya know?

My mom and step-dad had been staying at my house while visiting from Michigan but had left the day before for a long weekend in New Mexico. Thankfully, they had been borrowing one of my aunt's cars and it was still sitting in front of my house. Running inside, I grabbed the keys and hauled my cookies to the office. Upon my arrival to my office, I was informed that the "very important meeting" had been cancelled and yet another f-bomb spewed from my lips.

I did a few things at the office and headed out to pick up my sister for a day of fun. As we drove to lunch, I told her what happened to my car and that she might need to hang out with me while we waited for the car to get towed to the tire place.

"Why does it need to be towed?"

"Well because I can't drive it on a flat tire and my insurance covers a tow."

"Yeah, but can't you just put the spare on and drive it to the tire place?"

"Kelsey, do I look like a girl who can "just put the spare on"?"

"No, you do not. But I can do it."

And with that I laughed rather hard at my little sister. True, she is roughly 4 inches taller than me but she is a stick figure and I just couldn't imagine her twig arms being used for anything other than lifting her cell phone. It should also be mentioned that as the older sister, I have always been the one to take care of her, not the other way around. Our rooms were next to each other when she was a baby and I would be the first one in the room when she cried. I've changed poopy diapers, cleaned vomit off of her, rocked her to sleep, helped her ride her bike, cooked her meals, kissed bruised elbows and scratched knees, sang her to sleep, braided her hair, listened to friend drama, given advice about boys, loaned money and kept more secrets than I can remember. I am the care taker and I like it that way. I don't need anyone to take care of me, least of all my 17 year old sister. So I pretty much ignored her when she said she could change the tire.

We had lunch and shopped our asses off and we headed back to my house. Once there, we put all of the ornaments on the tree, watched "The Sound of Music", and munched on holiday treats because that's always been our tradition. Slowly but surely, I was finding my holiday spirit. I had almost completely forgotten about the tire when Kelsey brought it up again.

"Well, let's go change that tire."

"Ha!"

"Seriously Kendra, I can change a tire. And you really should be able to as well."

Yes, that's right, the girl whose diaper I changed more times than I can count schooled me on being able to change a tire. I followed her out to the garage where she proceeded to jack my car up (after finding the jack in the truck and showing me how to remove it from its handy case), removed the lugnuts (Kelsey - "Bend at the knees so you don't hurt your back, Kendra." Kendra - "Bend this."), and then put the spare on my car.

I stood there slack jawed as Kelsey put the tire in the trunk and wiped grease from her hands. My sister had single-handedly changed my tire while I stood there wearing my gardening gloves (didn't want to get grease on my hands) muttering things like, "Um, do you want me to hold that wrench-y thing?"

Later that evening we watched the rest of "The Sound of Music", and Kelsey gave herself a manicure...because changing a tire can be hell on one's cuticles, and we polished off the rest of the sugar cookies. I looked around at my gorgeous tree, lovely mantle and darling sister and for the first time this holiday season, I felt pretty festive.

So, the good news is that I found my holiday spirit in spending the day with Kelsey...and in witnessing the Christmas miracle - The Changing of the Tire. (It's a lesser known miracle, but a miracle nonetheless.)