A flat tire gives you all kinds of time to ponder the world. You have to clear out the trunk to get to the jack and other tire changing gear, so as you ponder all the crap you keep in the trunk, you might also ponder the meaning of life, wondering all the time why you do have so much useless stuff in your trunk. Jacks today are a little different than the bumper jacks of yesteryear that our fathers taught us to use. They are smaller and safer, but harder to use–most of are a scissor-type that goes under the frame just in front of the tire. Once you have that figured out, you have to attack the lug nuts with the lug wrench. Since most lug nuts are put on with power tools that torque the nuts to a certain torsion that will not loosen up on its own, getting them loose by hand is a real challenge. The act of loosening those lug nuts really gets you in touch with your feelings, your muscles, your weight. All of this takes time, and for someone who doesn’t do this every day, this is a chance to review the principles of physics that govern mass, work, gravity, torque, and the like. Since changing a tire is a solitary past-time, you get to talk to yourself, review procedures for the correct changing of the tire, debate the pro’s and con’s of carrying a larger lug wrench, and analyze the engineering of the jack and its correct application. Once you have the old, flat tire off and the spare tire on, you have to repeat the procedure of removing the tire, but in reverse. You screw on the lug nuts, lower the car, tighten the lug nuts, remove the jack, and had to the tire store to get the flat fixed. You pick up your tools, put the flat tire in the trunk, ponder the destiny of all the junk that was in the trunk, pour yourself a cool drink and wipe the sweat from your forehead.