I can't believe she didn't have it!

I can't believe my sister didn't have the right tool!

This past weekend, I drove over to Indiana so that my one sister could fix my car's brakes. And by "fix," I mean replace the rotors and pads. And, I am shocked (Shocked!) that she didn't have the right tool to reset or compress the cylinders on the back brakes.

You have to understand, this woman has like everything a weekend warrior might dream of having in his garage -- beginning with the garage itself, a three-bay pole-barn structure (with a good 12 to 14 feet of headroom) that she build soon after buying her house. I don't mean that she hired someone to build it for her, I mean that *she* built it with her own hands and some help from her son.

And the tools she has! For instance, she doesn't have *a* screwdriver; rather, one of the drawers in one of her tool chests is full of them, all neatly laid out for maximum use of the space in the drawer. She even has an air compressor and all sorts of tools to use with it!

Yet, for all those tools she has, we still had to use pliers to turn the brake cylinder. Fortunately, she has all sorts of pliers and we were able to use one to get it reset. She also changed the spark plugs and cables.

Thanks sis!

I told her I was going to have to blog about her not having a particular tool she'll probably never again have call to wish she had. I'll bet she didn't think I would do it.


My other sister, the twin of the first mentioned, has never built a three-bay garage, but she can use power tools and hand tools, and she used to own quite a number of them herself. This younger one is the one who came over one weekend last summer to help me get started with building the roof/enclosure over my patio. And a year or two prior to that she helped me reroof part of the house.

Yesterday, she patched a bunch of my shirts and jeans.

Thanks sis!

When Henry Higgins whinged, "Why can't a woman be more like a man?" he was lamenting he didn't know any women like my sisters.