Now this is a sad little statement. Last Friday I came home from work to replace my brake pads. My friends’ first reaction- "Oh, I guess there’s going to be an email about THAT!" The obvious overture that there was no way I could manage this simple task without significant problems. And I’ll have you know, I’ve done brake work before on a few different cars, so I don’t see the reason for the skepticism.

Of course there were problems. There’s always problems. First let’s start with those air-torquing morons where I got my last set of tires. If you recall this is the same place I endured a two-hour wait (while watching FOX Kids mind you -ugh) just to get 3 new tires. Whoever torqued those lugnuts down might as well have welded them in place. Damn them.

Everything was going fine at the start. Earlier in the week I had actually gotten the parts and set aside time to do this. I had a quiet place, which level pavement to work (Larry’s house) and no social or work commitments to get in the way. I had done this before and even had a book just in case. I had a bunch of tools and access to more (Larry’s). Parked the truck, parking brake on, get all the tools out, put newspaper down under the truck to protect the driveway, truck up on jackstands and hubcap (only 1, those insurance bastards lost my other one – see "Why traveling during an ice storm really does blow" email from 2 yrs ago), good weather, a drink and everything is looking good.

Which is when the yelling began. This had happened before actually (yeah, like it’s going to take a lot for me to convince you of that), and I actually had to go out and buy a 4ft pipe. I still have this pipe. This pipe, my engineering books, most of my furniture, toys and housewares, along with Superman #1 probably, are currently residing in a storage unit in Garner. At least I think so, I haven’t actually checked recently.

Using the end of the jack bar I was able to get one side off. It wasn’t pretty, and probably not safe, but I wasn’t in the mood. But this cobbled up technique would not work on the other side. The dark side. Again with the Dark Side. And now I’m faced with the dilemma – put tire back on and drive out to buy a new pipe (or romp through the jungle I call a storage unit to find old one), or get creative? Not wanting to admit defeat, I decided to see what my dinosaur-like brain could come up with.

Weights. At stressful times, perhaps it’s good to let off a little steam and workout some. Actually, if memory serves, increased physical activity during rage-related stress only increases the mental part of the problem though it does leave you too tired to really get into trouble. Either way, this is not what I was referring to. I was actually thinking of using the bar itself as a pipe.

Now, for those on this list that know Larry, you know at least 3 things – 1) he has a lot of dogs, 2) he’s a freak (in a good way), 3) he has a lot of weights. Using the 6ft weight bar he had fitting up as a pullup bar, I was able to wrench those lugnuts off. Barely. Of course, every trip inside the house was a nice challenge – you try getting through 3 bored, hyper dogs weighing at a total of 220lbs and see how you fare. For those of you thinking that leaving them outside would be a good idea are forgetting that dogs, unlike cats, bark. A lot. Especially when you’re only feet from them and they can’t get to you. A lot.

But now I’m back in action so I’m fine. Or so I thought. It shouldn’t take a hammer to get a bolt out, yet it always does. The way they torque these things in, why not just make it all one part? At one point I actually had to use the weight back as a lever on the wrench to get a bolt loose. But now the pads are switched. Looking at the original pads, there may have been some life left to them. The noise however, was killing me and I figured since I’d gotten this far I might as well switch them (instead of just shimming them).

This is yet another reason I’m an idiot. Because I put the new (thicker) pads in, I now can’t get the caliper back over the rotors. This is because I blatantly skipped Step #2 – C-clamp relieve the pistons. Good thing I read the book after I stopped cussing. But I don’t have a C-clamp. Hmm, Larry probably does. I’ll just go in the house and "Umpfh. Ugh. Down. No. Would you stop doing that. Ok, no. Wait just a …."

The real problem here is you get in both as you come in and as you leave. But I get the clamp and make it out alive. I really got the wrong size clamp but finagle it to work. Finally I’m done with that side. I check the time, and it’s approximately the next day. Well, it might as well have been. So now I move on to the other side, the Dark Side. Remembering all of my (132) errors from the first side, I decide to streamline my approach and leave part of the caliper on. This was good until I got to the C-clamp issue. Now it definitely wouldn’t fit so I had to go get the bigger one. "This is not a game! Could you at least move out of the…" But after that little adventure, the rest of the job takes 15 minutes. The cleanup process goes relatively smoothly and doesn’t take too long. Now I take all the borrowed tools back in and "Why don’t you just go ahead and kill me now?!"

I test the brakes out on the way back home. Fine. I get in and think about dropping the truck off at a station to get the oil changed and maybe a new tire or two (1 old one left to replace, 1 new one has a leak in it). I call and find out I can leave it overnight and they can get to it sometime during Saturday. I tell him, that’s fine I can come up there tonight or tomorrow. So now he asks what I’ve got and what I want. I tell him and he’s like, "O hell, bring that on tonight, we’ll take care of it right now." I was happy and yet frightened. First, it was late, and they were going to close soon, second, his voice sounded excited and erratic, like this was a challenge.

Frankly at this point I didn’t care. I was covered from head to toe in grease, had minor bleeding on my hands (brake pads have sharp points kids, ugh) and after running the Gauntlet so much I felt like Corey Dillon playing the Ravens. So what if this guy is mentally unbalanced, he’s willing to get it done. And so I was off. And now I notice I don’t have any gas.

But I’m not stopping. Oh, hell no. I coast in to the joint with at least a half a tank left. It took longer to get there than I thought so I was unsure if they could still get this done. And now the guy behind the desk claims he doesn’t know who I am, what I’m talking about or who I talked to. But he says, "what the hell, we can get that done." At this point I’m thinking, "this is why Firestone failed" and I just don’t care.

Throughout the hour it takes them to do this I did manage to talk to my younger sister (just got back from Alaskan cruise – I think James/Kim going on similar?) and older brother (who swears he never has these kinds of car troubles), which was cool. I also talked to Cooter (my affectionate name for him anyway), who is also a disc golf fan. We are constantly amazed by the acceptance of this sport by rednecks, this is usually more of a college/hippie thing (last week, Missing Tooth Guy was giving us the tour of a new course near us. Nice guy really).

When all is said and done, an old man give me a nail as a present, I didn’t need new tires and I got an oil change. I hit the gas station next door, drove home hoping something wasn’t going to fall off, managed to take a shower and passed out.

And I would need the sleep. Because the remainder of the weekend entailed bouldering, disc golf on a hot day, an all night party in which I took badminton in sandals way too seriously, 3hrs worth of volleyball in direct sun and would hear another man say, "His balls move funny."

Some days I should just stay in bed.