My Pontiac has a flat tire and went I tried to change it the other day, I discovered that one of the lug nuts had seized to the stud. I split two sockets and my tire iron trying to get the damn thing loose. When I mention this to the Mold Maker at work on Tuesday, he offers to borrow his father-in-law’s air compressor and impact wrenches so we can get the nut loose. Great! Because there’s simply no way I can afford to have the car towed to a tire place.
Well, I’m out sick on Wednesday, so today when I go back to work, I ask the Mold Maker if he’ll be able to borrow his father-in-law’s tools to help me.
“Oh, I can’t get them.” He says. “He loaned them to Sal, and if I go over there to get them, Sal’ll make me drink.”
Yeah, okay, whatever. So I ask him if he can still give me a hand trying to get that lug unseized.
“Yeah, sure.” he says. Seems all excited about it too.
I really need to get my car running because I’ve got to get to the pharmacy and get my prescription for antibiotics filled, since my sinus infection is starting to affect my ears. I can’t get any of my cow-irkers to run me over there, since none of them normally get off work when I do so I just have to grab a ride with whomever happens to be around and going my way. I can’t call my brother to take me, since he works late, and generally doesn’t get off work until after the pharmacy closes. My sister-in-law’s out, since if she’s not working, she’s doing church activities. My father’s out, since him helping me cuts down on his drinking time. My step-mother’s out, as she could give a rat’s ass about me. My other friends are out, since they all live in Nashville and with traffic, that’s an hour’s drive away. So, either I get my car running, or I’m SOL.
As the day goes by, the Mold Maker starts having second thoughts about helping me. Gradually, he begins coming up with excuses as to why he can’t help me. Like, “We’ve got the same tools. We’re just as smart. We’re just as strong.” Fuck it, asshole, I’m sick Ogdamnit! And the last thing I need is to be spending hours outside, working on my car. Which, of course, is exactly what I do.
I try supergluing the socket to the lugnut, that doesn’t work. I say the hell with it, dig out my Dremel, propane torch, hammer and chisels, and flashlight. I try heating the lugnut up with the torch, that doesn’t work. So I end up laying on the cold ground, jerry rigging my Dremel tool to hold a cut-off wheel, and use that to cut on the lugnut. When the wheel shatters, I grab my hammer and chisel, and start whaling away at the lugnut, until the chisel shatters. Then I take the flashlight, find the Dremel tool, jerry rig another cut off wheel, use that until it shatters. I then grab the hammer and another and pound away at the lug nut until my arms get tired.
For two and a half hours, I alternate between trying to cut the nut off and chisel it off, with brief periods of rooting around in the driveay for various parts I’ve dropped or need. Sure as fucking shit would have been nice to have someone alternating jobs with me, or at least holding the Ogdamned flashlight while I worked. Eventually, I gave up, because I realized that I still had a ways to go before I got the nut off and I was making myself sicker by staying out in the cold.
So fuck you, you paranoid worthless piece of shit Mold Maker. I’m going to find a way to make my remaining days at work fucking Hell for you. You want help pissing Pete Puma off? You’re not going to get it. As a matter of fact, from this moment on, Pete Puma’s my new best friend! And if there’s anything I can do to help him piss you off, I’m going to do it!
“I split two sockets and my tire iron trying to get the damn thing loose.”
If, after that, heating the nut didn’t work the only solution was cutting it off. Be prepared to buy another bolt and replace it, too, as cutting the nut with a chisel will likely ruin the bolt
Good luck. Oh yeah, you’ve got some shitty friends and relatives.
That’s how I split the sockets and the tire iron was the breaker bar.
**John Carter of Mars/b], the stud’s ruined for sure. I got just about a 1/3rd of it lopped off and I couldn’t see where the stud ended and the lugnut began, so obviously they’ve rust welded themselves together.
Oh, man…this novel has a lot of turns and twists to it…oops, sorry for the pun. I hope the next chapter has you putting the tire iron to better use…something akin to “Walking Tall”.
Your family seriously sucks. A person should be able to rely on their family for help, but it seems your family members are too self-absorbed to care about others.
On the other hand, I can’t see what the problem with your co-worker is, since he’s under no obligation to spend his free time fixing your car. Yes, you’re sick, but it’s possible it didn’t look that bad from his perspective - bear in mind that sinus pain can be pretty awful without looking that bad to an observer. In fact, that dark puffiness under the eyes can look quite a bit like you’ve been up late, being self-indulgent. (At least, it always does on me, much to my irritation. Nothing worse than feeling like hell warmed over and having people assume it was self-inflicted!)
So, I can understand your anger, but I reckon you should be laying it on your family, not your co-worker. They’re the ones who have some kind of obligation to come through for you when you need it, not casual acquaintances.
What the hell kind of chisel ‘shatters’? Chisels should be harder then the material you are trying to break, in my world.
Help;
I had a lug nut stick one time also. I used a drill and a very small drill bit and proceeded to drill about 20 holes in the lug nut in various locations. I was then able to take a fairly large vise-grip and sort of crush the lugnut off the stud. The stud had to be replaced, but at least I could get the tire off.
For those who think the OP’s imposing on friends, or his family is jerkish I say, read his other threads for the backstory first, before you judge. His co-worker did agree to help him, then weaseled out of it. That’s not cool in my book.
Way to missread the OP. If I had asked him to help me and he said he was busy, no problem. If I had asked him, he agreed and then had to back out because something important came up, no problem. That, however, is not what happened. He agreed to help me, and then backed out by saying, “Well, I don’t think I could do anything that you couldn’t do.” This is also not the first time he’s pulled that shit on me. He offered to make some decorative pieces for my Chrysler, I’m still waiting on them. He also told me that any time I ever needed help fixing the Chrysler, he’d be more than happy to help. When I did, he wasn’t. He also knows how shitty my family is, and has some experience with that himself (he’s got a restraining order against his father).
Today, he gave me a ride home (which is good seeing as how I had to walk to work this morning in the cold) and spent a whole ten minutes working on my car before declaring he was tired and then went home. Needless to say, I’m still without transportation.
I’ve had friends who’ve asked me to help them fix their car, and if I’ve ever had to quit before we got the job finished, I’ve always asked them if there was any place they needed to go or anything they wanted me to get for them. Because I know how bad it sucks to be without a car, so if I can’t help them get their car running, at least try to make being without one as bearable as possible.
AuntiePam, I don’t think any of the pharmacies in this town deliver. Mine certainly doesn’t.
I haven’t read the backstory on all this as Zabali_Clawbane suggested, but from what I can tell from the OP and the break-down story you posted a few days ago, it sounds like you ask your family and friends for help quite often. Maybe they’re getting a bit tired of taking time out of their schedules to help you solve problems that could’ve been avoided with a little preventive work. And maybe they’re getting tired of you turning obnoxious on them when they refuse to help. Mold Maker was your friend, and now he’s your worst enemy because he changed his mind. Who exactly is being the bad friend here?
Good Christ, man. Why would I want to help you if you say shit like this about me?
And from the current OP:
It appears to me that you don’t hold a very high opinion of any of your friends or family. I have nothing against you, Tuckerfan, but I wouldn’t want to help you, either. That’s just my opinion.
Perhaps you should invest in the services of AAA, since you seem to have car problems so often. And they’ll come out no matter what you say about them.
Actually, I don’t ask my family and friends for help very often at all. Why? Because a minor problem is a major shit storm for them. On Monday, I asked my father to come get the key to the Chrysler because the only place I called that could tow it, wouldn’t come get the key. I had no way of getting the key to them, so when I called my dad, I explained the situation to him, that I had found a place that would get the car, but they had to have someone deliver the key to them before they would go get it. Two hours later my dad shows up, with a list of places that he’s called trying to get a better rate than the one I found (he didn’t find one, and none of them would come get the key, either). I gave him the key, written directions for where the car was and paid him more than what the tow bill would be.
Later on in the day, I call to see if he’s heard anything about the car. He proceeds to bitch at me for how much the tow bill was. He didn’t have to spend a fucking dime on the tow bill, there was more than enough money left over to cover his gas (and I didn’t even ask about the change) and the tow bill was damn cheaper than what the impound fees would be, plus what it would have cost me to have the car towed from the impound lot back to my place. Yet I get my ass chewed out for it. WTF?
The simple fact of the matter is, I don’t discuss my life or my problems with my friends and family. (There are a few exceptions to this, of course, but not many.) My family and most of my friends don’t know that I’m on anti-depressants, don’t know why I might be on them or anything else. The reason I don’t discuss these things with them is that either they don’t understand, or instead of trying to be helpful, they spend literally hours doing nothing but giving me shit about how I spend my life. They can’t stand the fact that I’m not married and don’t have kids. They hate the fact that I find most of the things they find entertaining intolerable (I’m sorry, but Kathie Lee Gifford grates on my last fucking nerve.). And when they do something foolish, I don’t say shit to them about it! Not one fucking word.
Five years ago, my dad got a DUI. He was so drunk when they arrested him that it took three days before he was sober enough to go before a judge! I’ve not said anything about that to him at all. I’ve not bitched to him about the fact that he’s still drinking, even when he’s called me up out of the blue, drunk off his ass, to chastise me for not being married. I haven’t bitched at him for being such a shit that he drove off the only girlfriend of mine that he’s ever met. (I could have married her too, if he hadn’t been such a dick. Mind you, even if I had married her, he’d have bitched at me because he would have found something about her to dislike. Hell, the first time he met her he dropped hints that he thought she was going to leave me for someone “better.”)
If this was the first time the Mold Maker had bailed on me, I wouldn’t have bitched. If it was the tenth time he’d bailed on me, I wouldn’t have bitched. But in the four years I’ve known the guy, he’s only helped me twice when I’ve asked him to. Everytime he’s asked me for help, I’ve been there. I’ve loaned him money without worrying about him paying it back, I’ve given him rides, hell, I act as a buffer between him and Pete fucking Puma, and you think I’m the bad guy? Get real, man.
And shit, I haven’t even mentioned my ex-friend Chuck. Chuck and I were practically brothers. He helped me, I helped him. When he pissed away his marriage, I didn’t turn my back on him. I gave him a place to stay, gave him advice, and tried to help him take his mind off of his problems by taking him places and introducing him to people I thought he might enjoy meeting. When Chuck ignored the advice I and other people gave him (and I got Chuck a job where I work about six months before he fucked up his marriage, and when he started going through his divorce everyone there bent over backwards to make things easier for him), I didn’t walk away from him. However, when he beat the shit out of his girlfriend I said that I was done with him. He threatened to kill me in response.
I worry like hell that I might end up like Chuck. Because Chuck had a lot of things going for him, but he blew all of it simply because he was nuts. No shit. Someone would say “Hi” to him, and he’d proceed to chew their ass out for doing it. He’d go to management and make up stories about what other employees were doing to try to get them in trouble (I personally witnessed this on several occassions).
I don’t make the accussations I’ve flung out in this thread or any of the others, lightly. I haven’t even detailed a tenth of the shit that goes on in the place I work at. Trust me, the place is far worse than you can imagine. Even the Mold Maker says he works in hell, surrounded by idiots.
Now, I want you to explain to me, how my rage is unjustified. I’ll even make it simple on you, you don’t have to read any of the back story, you just have use the information in this thread. Take this sentence from the OP
Notice that I do not say I asked the Mold Maker for help. I state merely that I mentioned my problem to him. As in, “Man, I spent yesterday trying to get a lugnut off my car and destroyed a bunch of my tools in the process.” What happens next? He offers to borrow some tools to help me fix the car. Notice that word “offers.” I did not ask him to borrow those tools, I didn’t even know his father in law had those tools. (My father, BTW, has the same tools as well. I haven’t asked him if I could borrow them.) Now, explain to me how I’m being a burden to him at this point? Because I just don’t see it. If he had said, “You need to get a chisel and hammer away at that thing.” I wouldn’t bitch, because that was an idea I hadn’t thought of at that time. I wouldn’t have asked him to help me since I would have figured that I could do it myself.
What happens next?
Do I bitch him out? No. I don’t really buy the story, but I’m not going to argue the point. There’s no way I can prove or disprove it. Based on my experience with him, I’d wager that was bullshit (I mean, I am talking about a guy who thinks Mars is just like Earth and that the government’s using chem-trails to control our minds), but really, there’s no point in discussing the matter since it won’t solve anything. Even if the story’s true, then it shows he lacks a great deal of self-control, since he can’t just pop over to Sal’s grab the tools and be off. No, he’s got to stay and drink with Sal. So how am I wrong here?
Then what happens?
I didn’t mention it, but at this point, he starts running around the shop, grabbing various tools he thinks we’ll need. Bear in mind that the day’s not over yet, not even close, and here he is building a stack of tools for us to use later on, getting all excited about using them. Practically salivating. Hey, no issues here. Or am I missing something?
What does the Mold Maker say as the day goes by?
Does he say, “I called to tell my wife that I’d be late and she said she needed me to come home and watch the kid while she runs some errands.”? Nope. Does he say, “I called and the baby sitter can’t stay late.”? Nope. Does he say, “My mom’s not feeling well and I need to go check on her.”? Nope. All reasonable excuses, IMHO. He says, “You’re just as strong as me.” WTF? That’s totally irrelevant, since we could combine our strengths to accomplish the task.
Oh, and when I say, “I’m sick.” I mean it. There’s no way anyone who knows me could look at me and say I wasn’t sick. I’m constantly bending over and horcking out pieces of my lungs (which I don’t normally do). I’m also sitting down at my machine. Pete Puma sits, the Mold Maker sits, but I never sit. So for me to be sitting down and horcking and wheezing is pretty fucking significant, don’t you think? Of course, I might be wrong. Maybe this is normal for someone to suddenly start doing this after two years. You tell me. Because I completely fail to see it.
I’m not bitching about my brother not helping me. He’d probably do it, but I don’t feel right asking him to take time off of work to do so. Plus, my brother’s 50 years old and works his ass off to support his wife (she just works to have something to do), and when my dad walked out on my mother when I was 9, forcing my mother and I to live off of hand-outs until she could find a job to support us, my brother took care of us without complaining. He’s been more of a father to me than my own dad has been. When I called him to come get me after my car broke down, he didn’t bitch me out about it. We didn’t spend as much time trying to get the car running as I would have liked, but if you’ll notice in my breakdown thread, I didn’t bitch about that. Hell, on Monday, he even drove by the car to check on it without my asking him to and called me to tell me that the car was okay. That’s fucking awesome! And yes, I did thank him for it.
So, again, I ask you, how the hell am I the asshole in this? How am I an asshole for bitching about someone who reneges on an unsolicited offer for help?
Have you tried a can of Fix-a-Flat? If there’s not a gaping a hole in the tire, one of those bad boys should inflate it enough to drive it to the tire place.
But – whether or not the help was unsolicited, and whether or not you’ve gone out of your way a jazillian times to help your friends and family and they haven’t reciprocated, the bottom line is that none of these people have an obligation to help you.
I guess I’m just more stoic. I don’t understand wasting energy fuming about people like that. Gives them too much power over me.
I’m just frustrated because it seems like I’m always bending over backwards to help people. I’ve driven out in the middle of nowhere at Ogawful hours of the night to pick up friends when they’ve decided to trash their cars deliberately, or have just had plain bad luck happen to them. I’ve sat with them all night when they’ve had the crying jags and talked about suicide when they’ve broken up with a girl even though I’ve had to be up at 4 AM to go to work the next morning. I’ve spent all day running them around town so they can do errands when their car’s died. And yet it seems like whenever I need help, they’re never around.
Even when I try to get ahead, it seems like life just takes great joy in fucking me over. I mean, I’ve got two dead cars on my hands that I can’t afford to fix. You’d think that wouldn’t happen, or at least not happen within days of one another, but it did.
