I was driving home the other day and saw a guy on the side of the road changing a flat tire.  I noticed as it appeared that it was an older bloke with the flat, but another car had stopped behind and it looked like he was helping change the tire.

It got me to thinking; (firstly, glad it’s wasn’t me with the flat) is it me, or don’t we get flat tires as much as what we used to.

I can remember as a kid with Mum and Dad, spending half of our family travelling life changing tires on the side of the road, or filling the boiling radiator with water out of a nearby dam, or fixing some other mechanical problem with a bit of fencing wire or a wedge of wood and/or a hammer.

Is it that things don’t break down as much now days?  Or, have we stopped fixing them and just throw them away.  Is it also that we don’t know how to fix them and just get someone else to do it.  And as it turns out when we get someone else to do it (an expert!) half the time they just throw it away and replace it on our behalf?

I love fixing things and working in my shed with the old tools that I have bought from the market or inherited from my Dad.  Often when I am buying or later looking at an old tool, I get to thinking who used it, what it was used for and how many times it fixed or made things.  I used to work on my cars when I was younger too, but when I lift up the bonnet on my modern car I feel like I am looking under the hood of the Space Shuttle; if there is a problem I usually just ring someone to fix it.

I suppose this rambling is all about accepting that in a complicated world, complicated things need experts to fix them (if I was quoting my Dad he would say an expert stands for an ‘ex’ which is a has been and a ‘spert’ which is a drip under pressure!)

But, does it have to be so complicated.  I understand that technology (which I love) and machines (which I love) are getting better and hopefully, most of the time, assisting us in leading a better life.  However, is this complication in ‘things’ something that has to be transcribed into how we live our lives.  Is the ‘can’t fix it throw it away and get a new one’ mentality something that we do in more parts of our lives than just our car and dishwashers.  Is it worth fixing something that isn’t fixed for free under warranty.

I don’t want to throw away my old tools and not only are most of them well made, but they can still do the job and I have that connection to them that sometimes is hard to explain.

Every now and again it is probably not a bad idea to get a flat tire.  Firstly, it might give you some time on the side of the road to just sit and do something with your hands (and remind you of the first time you watched your Dad do it on one of those epic family road trips!); you may meet someone who stops to help, who may change your life (or at the least confirm your faith in human nature); and when you take the tire in to get fixed you may just contemplate that life doesn’t have to be too complicated and that flat tires can be fixed, like lots of things.

Plus, next time you see someone with a flat tire on the side of the road (which as I started off this post, isn’t too often) you might want to stop and say, I reckon I can help you fix that; maybe you’ll change there life.