Some Days You’re The Hammer, And Some Days You Need One

My tire had gone flat, so a friend and I were trying to replace it outside of the place I rented. We had removed all the nuts, but the tire refused to come off no matter how hard we tried to pull it, and we were both stumped on what to try next.

After another failed attempt to get the wheel off, I heard a man I hadn’t realized was behind us speak up.

Man: “Is the wheel stuck on?”

Me: “Yeah, it won’t budge.”

Man: “I have the same problem with my car. I have a hammer that’s supposed to help with that in my trunk if you want to borrow it.”

Me: “Oh, sure, if you don’t mind.”

Man: “No problem, but my car’s a little ways away so it may take me a few minutes to get it.”

With that, he turned around and jogged back toward another part of the rental complex. A little while later, he showed up with the hammer; we’d made no progress with the wheel in that time.

Man: “Here you go. Just tap it around the back a few times and it should come loose.”

The hammer was more like a small mallet, with a large head and a good bit of weight behind it, at least relative to its small size. As the man said, a few taps on the back worked wonders and the tire soon came off.

Me: “Here’s the hammer back. Thanks for lending it to us., I’m not sure what I would have done otherwise.”

Man: “Oh, yeah, I used to have to get the whole car towed somewhere just because I couldn’t get the stupid tire off; there’s a reason I started carrying this thing around. You start to feel silly being stranded on the side of the road because you can’t do something as basic as replacing a tire.”

Me: “Well, thanks again.”

Man: “No problem. I was just out walking to kill time and get exercise anyway. I can walk to my car and back to pick a hammer up just as well as walking anywhere else. Glad I could help.”

Thank you, random stranger, for solving my inability to change my tire.