We're all doomed

[swapmeet]

It's cliche... but man when I see some of the kids running around today I worry about our future.

I have no doubt that I was the topic of this very conversation some 20 years ago when I was a teen.

So here's my story... this JUST happened not 30min ago.
I'm sitting in my office and I hear a woman's voice at our front door "hello???? hello???" I go to the lobby (i'm the only one here today) and ask if I can help her.
She's a white woman, early 60's, sweat pants, sandals (it's 45* here today) and a hoodie with a skull bedazzled on the back.

She said she had a flat, and her grand kids were in the car. She didn't know how to change it, her grands were telling her she needed a tool and she didn't have any tools... blah blah blah...

I couldn't in good conscious not help her. So I grab my breaker bar and universal lug socket out of my truck and go over to her car (30 yards away).

So its a Ford Windstar, Passenger front tire is flat, bead is broken.
After evaluating the situation I realize that her "grand kids" are ****ing teenagers... 3 of them... all boys!!! Later I find out they're 13, 15, and 17... and of course they're all on their cell phones texting or whatever.

So she makes them get the jack out of the back and they're all staring at it trying to get the lug wrench off (it snaps into place.) I ask for the assembly, get it, pull the wrench off.. you'd think I pulled a live chimpanzee out of my ass... they were just amazed "Whoa how did you do that???" I'm trying to disguise my frustration with the 'boys'.

So I get the jack in place, break the lugs loose, and get the spare down, which was another feat of amazement. I explain how to finish the job to the boys, because there was no way I was going to lift a minivan with a scissor jack when there are 3 able bodied, albeit generically useless young adults around.

The lady tells one of the boys (the oldest) to take the lugs off. As he whisks his shaggy dyed black hair from his face he says "I don't know how to mechanic..."

Back to my office I go...

10 minutes pass and one the boys, the youngest, is at my office door.
Kid "Hello?"
Me "What can I help you with?"
Kid "Um... We broke the jack..."

Me Ok... i'll be there in a second.

So I get in my truck, drive over to their car cause god knows what tools they will... well... what I'M gonna need now.

Back on the scene, they didn't set the ebrake, van rolled, folded up the scissor jack. Its repairable but I didn't have time for that. I'll take 10% of the blame on that, I didn't spell out every step. So I get out my bottle jack, and lift the van up myself. You can imagine how excited I am, but these are my tools now, and i'm not letting these idiots break my stuff.

I make the boys take the flat off and put the spare on. At this point the oldest, the 17 y/o had left... just walked off...
The 15 year old CAN'T PUT THE SPARE ON THE STUDS... He tries for like 2 minutes. I'm standing there saying "Come on guys, don't make me do it for you..." Then the 13 y/o can't do it... SAME ISSUE...

So I get fed up, wondering if its the wrong size bolt pattern or something legit... NOPE... I throw it on 3 seconds...

So I tell them to put the lugs on... They get them all finger tight... just when i realized that 3 of the 5 are on backwards (bevel out)... So I make them redo it. I realize its a good thing I'm there.

I let the car down some and tell the 15 y/o to tighten down the lugs. He's a mess... the wrench is on crooked... So I show him how to do that. I let the van all the way down. He starts to put the wrench away and i'm like "Uhhhh... let me check your work chief..." Yeah I got two turns out of each lug.

Guys... I know this is not the average... This can't be representative of the majority... but sweet baby jesus on a broom stick!

I'm calling my dad later today and thanking him again for making me learn how to work on things. It wasn't always fun at the time, but I revel at how lazy and unresourceful grown men and even these teens are today.
Its just unbelievable.



So the spare... as you might already have guessed, is low. I tell the lady to limp the van to the gas station thats about 1/4 mile away. She approaches a rail road crossing and jams the brakes... spins the spare off the bead...

So now... shes sitting in front of the crossing... in dense fog...hazards on... flat spare... middle of the road.

 

[fourwd1]

Someone in that family has been fishing in the shallow end of the gene pool..

 

[Jernik]

I believe it. We were in Whataburger a while back, and our order total came to $9.70 or something like that. Handed the kid a $20, he accidentally entered $10 in the register (showing .30 change). You should have seen the look on his face when he realized I handed him a $20 instead of a $10! You'd think he just saw his life flash before his eyes, he honestly didn't know what to do! It took me a minute or two to convince him he just needed to give me $10.30 change and the drawer would be fine at the end of the day. :doh:

It wouldn't bother me so much, but our property taxes for the school district are outrageous! You'd think for that kind of money they could at least teach kids basic math/money skills, but apparently every dime goes directly to the football program with no money left for actual education. :frusty:

Guess I should be happy, they usually do have a winning team. :cheer2:

 

[OL0033]

It's a shame, it really is.
BEFORE I even learned to drive I was taught how to put a spare on and read a map.
I clearly remember my dad yelling at me the first time cause I could not get it on the studs
Good times...always grateful for what my old man taught me.

 

[Thai]

It's cliche... but man when I see some of the kids running around today I worry about our future.

Ask them if they smoke weed....

Anyways, your post made my day! Awesome post! Love the extra pics in there to animate your story!

Thank you.

 

[swapmeet]

Update...

The guy who owns the property adjacent to ours took pity on them. He loaded up the 13 y/o and the first flat and had a used tire put on for $15.

When he got back, the 15 y/o had taken off.

He got a proper floor jack from his house and had the youngest help him put the wheel back on. He's in his 70's so he told him how to/ made him do most of it. They're on their way.

Because that kid stayed and helped.... he learned more than the other two and will be that much farther ahead next time something happens.

 

[bofa]

I bet if you had told them to Google a YouTube video of it, they would have figured it out.

 

[1engineer]

Yes, 20 years ago we were saying the same things about you! Great story and the pics were spot on. My 22 year old daughter was coming to WV from SC a few weeks ago and called to tell me she would be arriving about 20 minutes late. I asked her if there as any problems (fog gets really heavy on the interstate ) as it was cold and rainy. She told me she had just gotten back in her CR-V after changing a flat tire. She was pissed because she had run over a rubber strap (the S-hook end) and it had punctured her almost new tires. I asked her if she had any problems changing the flat and she said "Dad, it would have only taken me about 10 minutes but it took some time to find rocks big enough to block the tires, I had a flat on a hill." She then told me she would get chocks to keep in the back of her car.
She changed he first tire solo when she was 14. She knows stuff about stuff. She can run a buffer and the list goes on.
My point is my daughter (she is now an RN working on her NP) offset all three of those boys in your van. Yes, there is hope for the future.

 

[acas1229]

I feel your pain.

Work at an auto parts store for few months and you'll really worry about America's youth.

 

[swapmeet]

I bet if you had told them to Google a YouTube video of it, they would have figured it out.

I don't think so man... these kids were so apathetic to the whole situation. I mean the oldest two just bounced... left their grandma who was raising them high and dry. They could have watched 50 videos over the time this transpired.

They would have waited for someone to come and do it for them. And more or less, thats what happened!

The oldest two walked off... (not to get help, they literally just left) and whenever they see their grandmother again... the van will be fixed and they'll have a ride.

This has been eating at me all day. I doubt my kids will get to this level of laziness and uselessness, but if it got like it was today, I would have told them to throw their phones in the street so we can watch cars run over them. Lil bastards don't get to have cell phones and not help out their caretaker. FML...

 

[OL0033]

Work at an auto parts store for few months and you'll really worry about America's youth.

All you have to do is deal with customers in any setting and you start worrying about soceity period, old and young haha

 

[LittleCaesar]

I asked my nephew how to change the oil in his BRZ a couple of weeks ago. Arrogant little punk. He said hold on old man (I am all of 36) let me see if there is a video for such. I asked him about checking the owners manual. What is that he asked? My sis should be so proud.

Smart phones, helping Americas youth become more ignorant one day at a time.

 

[macgyver_ga]

Think about it this way... when SHTF those kids will be the first to go.

Survival of the fittest ;-)

I can tell you right now though, my wife wouldn't know the first thing about changing a tire. She refuses to learn and her excuse is always "I can just call you or Dad to change it for me."

My next door neighbor is one of those people you mentioned. Except sometimes he makes a valiant effort at fixing things but he's just downright terrible at it. Most of the time, he is the definition of insanity "doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result". I walked over one day because I saw him messing with his breaker panel in the garage and thought to myself, "OH LORD! I better get over there before he kills himself!". At least he had the main power cut off. He was trying to shove the new breaker back in but he had it backwards and just kept fiddling with it over and over. Finally I kinda knudged my way in and took it from him. Flipped it over and snapped it back in in about 2 seconds. I think he spent a lot of time trying to shove the square block into the round hole when he was a kid.

 

[snivilous]

Work at an auto parts store for few months and you'll really worry about America's youth.

I worry when I go into an auto parts store usually since no one has any idea what I'm talking about :doh:

I was complaining to my sister the other day about how much people piss me off since there seems to be tons of idiots nowadays, let alone on forums or facebook or any other online source. I know there's plenty of fields I don't understand or have a vague knowledge of stuff (like medical stuff for example), but common sense and being logical can go so far and just thinking through things, I feel like most younger people (in my age range for that matter) are just plain stupid and unable to do anything themselves.

 

[macgyver_ga]

Work at an auto parts store for few months and you'll really worry about America's youth.

Sometimes I worry about the auto parts store employees. Seems like 99% of them don't seem know how to find parts outside of asking your year,make, model. There's only a small percentage of them who actually know cars and know how to navigate the system and think outside of the box.

Back when I had a turbo car, I ran NGK BKR7E plugs and had some idiot at pep-boys give me the deer in headlights look when I asked for NGK BKR7E plugs... He kept asking what car are they going on and I kept arguing with him that it doesn't matter just look up the damn part number in the part x-ref (that was after trying to be nice). After like 15 minutes of looking in the back he finally found a case of them. I bought the whole case just so I wouldn't have to deal with that crap again.

 

[Antman]

I work with the public. I find that a great deal of the people I deal with every day have a huge sense of entitlement and/or are just plain lazy.

Makes me sick.

 

[A.Wilson013]

I just don't go outside anymore.

I sit at home, in the dark, playing Counter Strike : Global Offensive, and drinking scotch.

50% of that is 100% true...

 

[my92t4r]

I just don't go outside anymore.

I sit at home, in the dark, playing Counter Strike : Global Offensive, and drinking scotch.

50% of that is 100% true...

watch it buddy

 

[wnelax04sr5]

last year i helped 5 college age males, one a mechanical engineering student ( [MENTION=66316]1engineer[/MENTION] I'm sorry) change a flat on an impala. they couldn't figure out how to open the jack, or find the spare (which was underneath the jack :redbrick

the way i see it, the idiots buried in their phone that don't know how to do anything practical or common sense related can be a good thing. for you guys and gals with kids that are actually teaching them stuff they will use and need to know, its a massive leg up. the idiots make those who are capable look even better. :cheers:

 

[Thai]

I have not changed a flat tire in many many years...last time was in college...some 15+ years ago!!! Surprisingly, I never had a flat even while off-roading (BFG baby!!)...maybe because i never keep a car long enough?

Then a few months ago, my wife called and said that her car (Subaru) has a flat at church. I went over...and with my kids there in her car, i had to do something!! We have AAA with free roadside assist, but damn it, i needed to make an example of myself. Honestly, it took me a few minutes to figure out where parts go...damn Subaru hides stuff from you!! It took me yet another few minutes to figure out logistics and reading Owner's Manual. Within maybe half-an-hour, i had the spare on her car. Of course, i had to take pics of it to show my kids later that night!