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My Truck Wouldn’t Start and I Felt Absolutely Incompetent

Not knowing how to boost your own vehicle is embarrassing.

Michelle Lee-Ann
5 min readFeb 26, 2020
Photo by Sam Manns on Unsplash

When I was younger, my dad taught me the basics on owning a vehicle. How to change a tire, how to check the oil, how to boost the damn thing, basic roadside safety. But, in years that have passed I’ve rarely needed to actually use these skills, which is a good thing because that means I’m not breaking down on the side of the road as much as I assumed I would be. Part of that is because vehicles are better made and the other part is because I’m not driving like a maniac, like I’m 22 and invincible.

The problem with not breaking down on the side of the road (if you can put a problem to that) is that I haven’t had to practice doing any of these things since I was a teenager. Sure, I could change a tire and definitely could with a quick Youtube video, but it’ll take me forever. I check my oil from time to time, but I haven’t done my own oil change because there’s just some things in life you should pay for. Accounting and oil changes are two of those things for me.

I’ve become lazy over the years on my regular ‘survival’ skills. Not the ones needed if I was dropped in the middle of a forest with only a compass and a knife, but the ones needed to just make it through the day. I’ve lost all that knowledge…

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Michelle Lee-Ann
Michelle Lee-Ann

Written by Michelle Lee-Ann

Recently published kid's book author, lover of all things Karl Lagerfeld, Golden Girls enthusiast, and finds happiness in books from Hemingway to Harlequin.

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