When life tosses you a curve, roll with it

I am a man on the move these days, despite serious attempts by fate to slow my roll.

If you drive and live in Canada, you’ve probably had experiences like the ones I just jam-packed into a weekend. It’s a good thing we can look back and learn from all this because in the moment, I was feeling less reflective and a lot more sweary.

It started innocently enough, as these things do. We decided, after 12 years, that we should move. So, we bought a house. It’s a nice little downsize for us emptynesters.

Don’t get me wrong, we’re quite excited about the new place. But to move into a place that you’re excited about means, well, you have to move.

We tried to make it easier by selling many of our possessions in online yard sales. We unloaded all kinds of stuff and it was priced to sell, sell, sell! We said everything must go and everything did go. Chairs, lamps, art, utensils. Come to think of it, I am missing a couple pairs of underpants.

Still, after 12 years in one house, you collect a lot of stuff. We looked at it all after our purge and thought, er, it’s not that bad.

So, we rented a cube van. The first thing we did was pick up a couch for the new house. We delivered it and noticed something we hadn’t when we weren’t driving a cube van, and when the driveway wasn’t snow- and ice-crusted. The last 20 feet or so of our driveway is basically a luge run.

My daughter and I were sizing up the situation. We agreed that the wise thing would be to park at the top of Mount Slipmore and carry the couch rather than try to back the truck up closer to the door.

It looked risky. It looked like the truck, with its Arizona plates and Arizona tires, might not make it back up that hill. It would be foolhardy to back down that hill — though it sure would make moving that couch easier. But it would be foolhardy. I mentioned that, right?

So, we backed the truck down the hill and nudged it as close to the door as we possibly could. It was great. We only had to lug the couch a few steps. Then I hopped back into the truck, drove it two-thirds of the way up the hill and the wheels lost their grip. We did the sensible thing and tried for 20 more minutes, always with the same result. I finally gave in and went to a store for sand. It worked.

Now, here’s a tip. After getting unstuck, we noticed a little sign on the dashboard. It said the truck is in “tow mode” automatically and that if conditions are slippery, you should push a little button to take it out of “tow mode.”

I said to myself, “This little nugget of information came too late for me, but it’s a life lesson for my readers.” Actually, I did not say that. I just swore.

Here’s another lesson. Two days after the move, I went out on errands.

What errands, you ask? Well, it’s a long story but, to be brief, we have no internet in the new house yet; so while waiting for service I decided to go find some free Wi-Fi so I could download a movie from Netflix.

Unfortunately, while heading home, I got a flat. It’s been a while since I changed a tire. I remember that day well. It was pouring rain. I was driving my kid and her friends to a Rihanna concert.

Did I remember how to do this? Time to find out. I managed to get the lug nuts off and I got the car jacked up enough to remove the tire.

Except it was stuck. There was no way it was coming off. It had to have been frozen and possibly mechanically seized or even freakishly heat-welded because no matter how hard I tried, it wasn’t budging.

Luckily there was a garage nearby and a nice guy came to help me. I hoped he had superhuman strength.

He walked up to the jacked-up flat tire, turned his back to it, lifted his foot and gave it a firm mule kick. Off popped the tire. The garage had me rolling along in no time.

I guess that’s lesson number two. If you are trying to fix something on your car, don’t just swear. Kick it.