first instincts

saturday i didn’t trust my first instinct.
midway into a right turn on a country road in vermont, i decided to swing back left taking the turn extra wide and into the shallow ditch while scrubbing my front right tire into a hidden rock. this slashed a five inch gash into my sidewall and blew out the tire. pulling to the side of the sandy road, i brought out the toyota factory bottle/screw jack which proved its uselessness. first of all, on anything other than pavement, it finds no purchase. second, when the tire is deflated, it is too tall to fit under the swingarm and too short to reach the frame. third, it has only around four inches of lift and thereafter makes a racheting sound as it slips its gearing.
down to a nearby friend’s farm, i began looking for another jack (he wasn’t home) and found only a 4-ton roll-around hydraulic floor jack with tiny caster wheels. resigned to my fate, i began dragging the behemoth up the soft gravel lane, digging a trench as i went. about a football field-length later, i see a smaller hydraulic jack in the back of a pickup and gladly leave the heavier jack in its own trench. my job became much easier with the new tool. yet, just prior to reinstalling the lugnuts, i drop half of them into the sandy road and being slathered with grease, the sand coats the threads. blowing the sand out of the lugs and promptly into my eye, i remind myself with an internal curse to complete a right turn when my first instinct tells me to start a right turn.