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I took a phone call at the store where I’m grateful to be employed. A man on the other end asked if we carried spare inner tubes for a kid’s bike. I walked over and checked the shelf and confirmed we do, a lot, in various sizes from 12-inch to 24-inch and up.
“And” he hesitated, “do you have anybody that can change it for us? I don’t really know how to do it.”
I thought for a second and felt kind of bad for him (and his kid), and I said I didn’t think the boss would want me to take the time, but sure, I’ll sneak away and do it as quick as I can, I guess. He said they’d come in soon.
A little while later in comes this lady pushing a small pink bike, the kind that 40 years ago we called a Huffy, with the rear tire flat.
“Where’s your husband?” I asked.
“He’s not here,” she said, a little out of wind.
OK. So, I got the diameter of the tire, and it was 20 inches, and I got a new innertube box off the shelf. Then I looked at the tire itself, and the treads were worn down all the way, and the tire had three skid spots that went all the way through to the innertube.
“So, two things,” I said to her, and she was smiling. She seemed very thankful for my help. “First, we can put a new innertube in, but it’s not going to last a day on gravel or dirt or anything because your tire is so worn. See here? She ain’t riding on tires. She’s riding on the tube itself. You guys are gonna have to patch the tire a lot.
“Second, I’ll do this for you, even though the boss probably wouldn’t want me to take all that time.” I paused. “But I really, really think that you and your husband should do it yourselves – should learn how to do it. You know? I just always feel better about myself when I can tackle life’s challenges. You know? Consider it a family project. Take an afternoon if you have to.”
She smiled and laughed and nodded and said – heartfeltly – that I was probably right.
“I’ll show you some things to get you started.”
So, I got two old adjustable wrenches of ours from the back room and told her to put them in her purse. “I’ll borrow these to you, but you got to bring them back. They’re not mine. They belong to the boss.”
So, I showed her how to use the wrenches to take off the wheel and separate the chain from the wheel. Then I got two paint can openers – the kind they got at hardware stores – and showed her how to pry one side of the tire off the rim. To pull the old innertube out. To put the new innertube in, and line the nipple up with the whole. Then I got a patch kit and showed her how to patch rubber.
“You can use this patch kit to patch the tire on the inside, or the outside if you have to, and when your innertube goes flat in the future, you can patch that too.”
She came back the next day to return our two wrenches. She was so happy. She startled me with a joke when I was playing with fishing lures.
“One question:” I interrupted her, “Did you guys do it?”
They did! But the new innertube was flat again this morning.
Too often I run into a worldview that goes like this: “You can give a man a fish, and he’ll eat for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he’ll go to your damn fishing holes and catch all your damn fish and eat them every damn day to come.”But I’m trying to be more generous. Get busy trying, I say, or get busy… You know the rest.
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