Vehicle Ballet

Although it is still hovering around 12 degrees here most days, last week's little snow dump in Labrador did motivate me to change over the tires on Erica and Casper. We have snow tires for Erica and getting them on was as easy as walking past the local neighbourhood garage and asking what day to bring her in. On Tuesday they were booking for Friday. Everyone is getting their snow tires on this week it seems. So Friday morning I was up at the crack of 8:30 to do this errand. And as I try to be as efficient as possible about these things, my cunning plan was to drop off the car and continue on with the dog for morning walkies as the local garage is close to an entry point for our favourite Grand Concourse trail.
I was so intent on this plan I nearly forgot to load the snow tires into the trunk. We were all ready to go when I realised that the tires were still on the back deck. My defence is that the usual division of labour has Studyboy dealing with snow tires and I have never actually done the loading before. So the dog then had to wait impatiently while I humped them out the door and attempted for several minutes to fit 3 large tires into 1 small trunk, (the 4th rides on the back seat) but damn if I couldn't even fit three into the trunk. After 4 separate attempts I managed to wedge them in after removing absolutely everything else in there. Unlike me, Erica does not lave a large back end.
Casper's change over yesterday was a little trickier still. He needed new snow tires this year and an annual MVI. Off I went to Cambodian Tire, which is located out beyond the overpass in a business park. It turns out that NL doesn't do annual MVIs, and after a confusing conversation about needing one and how to get one with the nice man at the automotive counter we concluded that this wasn't something I needed at all. Apparently you can happily drive any old death trap forever in this province, which may be one reason auto insurance is so high.
I also learned something else on this adventure. Snow tires come in various sizes to fit different vehicles. I mean it makes sense when you think about, I've just never had to think about it because, again, this is Studyboy territory. Just like jeans have a waist number and a inseam length number, tires have numbers related to something that I wasn't really listening to because the man at the automotive counter wasn't that cute. He was nice though, and he walked out to inspect Casper to determine the correct size. The wait was going to be 4 hours and there is not enough to interest me for that long in the business park, so I took a bus home. It meandered around the Avalon Mall and the Janeway hospital and Memorial campus before dropping me off, and with the initial wait and the meandering I concluded that it was almost as fast to walk. It was nearly dark however by the time they called to say I could pick Casper up, and so I had Studyboy drive me back to save aggravation.
Studyboy is really quite the gentleman and he waited in the parking lot until I was ready to leave just to make sure everything was fine and I wouldn't be stranded in a desolate parking lot after dark. He pulled out first and made for the exit, I pulled out behind and had to wait for a silver Toyota to go by before following. By this time it was dark, and the parking lot, like all box store parking lots has traffic calming islands in strategic places, which make no sense when they are empty of cars. Studyboy mistook one of these islands for the exit and drove toward it until realising too late his error, had to swing round to the right to avoid a median. The silver car apparently was just following him, and had to make the same right swing correction. I was just following both cars and had to do the same manoeuvre, Casper meeting Erica on the way back in the process. It was like an impromptu vehicle pas de trois. I don't know which was funnier, the foolish look on Studyboy's face, or the confused one on the driver of the silver Toyota. At any rate I didn't stop laughing until we were home.