Evan the Mechanic

Last night I finally got around to changing the brake pads on my van. Kira, Evan and Landon arrived in the afternoon so I figured it would be fun to have Evan (my two year old grandson) help me. We had a good time and got ourselves very dirty. Unfortunately as I was removing my lug nuts three of my lug studs broke off. That is very unusual. I've been doing my brakes my entire life and I think I've had three studs break in thirty years, this time I had three in one night. It was too late to do anything about it so this morning I made some phone calls. The only people who ever touch my tires are Costco and myself and I haven't done my brakes for well over a year so in my mind this is clearly Costco's problem. They assured me that they only torque their impact wrenches to 55 in-lbs but I don't think that means a thing. Impact wrenches have a lot of momentum and besides, three nuts at once really points to operator error. Finally the guy said that if I brought the bill in and the nuts and let them look at it they could submit it to corporate and let them decide if they'll pay to have it fixed. I then started calling around to see what it would cost to have someone fix my studs. I was stunned to learn that this was going to be $150. I was worried about time (Lisa reminded me that this is our last Saturday to get ready for Christmas) but I really hate to pay $150 for something that didn't seem to me like it was such a big job. Finally I went to Kragen (the auto parts store) and bought some studs. They cost $1.50 each.

Once again I took Evan out to help me with the job. Lisa bought this little beach chair for him to sit in and Evan was busy with his wrench and I guess he leaned too far forward. He fell head first into my pile of car parts. Kids with SMA have no reflexes so poor Evan couldn't put his hands out or anything. There he was face first in my pile of metal parts. I don't know if you've ever seen brake dust before but it is very black and sticks to you like glue. I grabbed the poor little guy and his face was entirely black. It was impossible to tell what was dirt and what was blood but it was obvious that there was a lot of blood coming from the little guys mouth. I only hoped he had all his teeth but I just held and snuggled him for a moment before we cleaned him up. After all the grime was removed it turns out that he has some pretty nasty gouges but he still has all his teeth and both of his eyeballs. Thank goodness. Now I really wish we had taken a picture of him with the black face but until we knew he was OK no one was about to take the time for a picture.

He is not a happy camper right now and it may be a while before he helps "bampa" with the car again. He did help me play Settlers tonight. I said to him, "you know what happened last time you helped grandpa"; and when I said that he started crying. Wrong thing to say. He finally decided to help me after all.

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The Streptococcus Mutans Bacteria lives in your mouth and break downs sugar to make lactic acid. The acid is what gives you cavities. Scientists have genetically modified the virus so that it produces alcohol instead of lactic acid. If you put this virus in your mouth it permanently displaces the old virus and no more cavities. It is in clinical trials right now.

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