More proof that Reddit will believe pretty much any story, so long as it makes a woman – sorry, “female” – look bad. Even if there is some tiny kernel of truth in this story from AskReddit , there is zero chance that it went down exactly (or even vaguely) as described by Mr. Kickass. Redditors are terrible writers of fiction, especially when their fictions masquerade as fact.
Oh, and there are plenty more comments castigating this probably-imaginary woman.
The, er, “female” was probably only bitchy because she had a millions of dollars in child support cheques in her purse and a trunk full of stolen sperm and was trying to make a quick getaway.
This kind of thing happens all the time in MRA-land. This story’s legit.
(Sarcasm, just in case)
I’ve, um, I’ve actually tried to take a tire off once by turning the wrench the wrong way.
One time I managed to get all the nuts off, but the tire was stuck fast to the wheel and took two or three people working a lever to pop it free.
Yes, tires are not beyond the comprehension of an entire gender, but sometimes they’re not very easy to change.
The story is most likely made up. It fits too many MRA talking points at once.
RE: Falconer
Oh thank god. I was starting to worry I was just officially Too Puny To Live. (Why won’t you come off, lug nut? WHYYY?)
If any of it’s based in reality, that seems most likely. Particularly if the “offer of help” came when she’d first starting trying to change the tire. But in any case, the “watched her from a coffee shop” really is just weird, unless said coffee shop was the author’s destination to begin with? (yeah just weird, the time I did basically that I then called AAA, not went finding someone who might somehow wiggle the damned lug nuts loose)
Do MRAs get that not all men can change car tires either? (hell, the owner of the car couldn’t even check his oil, probably still can’t given his last project needed a 3/4″ wrench and he bought a 3/8″ wrench >.<)
And even if she said literally and exactly "I don't need help from someone like you" she could've always meant "cuz you've just randomly decided to insist I can't do this and should go wait in your car, creepy, no thanks“
He stopped to help a female?? Pffft, mangina/white knight/etc. etc.
My parents never taught me to change a tire, but I did have one of those emergency kits with the blanket and emergency stuff. And a AAA card. But no cell phone. And I lived in a flyover state, so finding a phone might have been an ordeal.
And the thing about flyover states is that people are really nice, so they all seem like serial killers. And we had our share, so unless you’re a lady over fifty I probably wouldn’t accept any help. Misandry, I know. Or I would probably sit in my car with the doors locked and the window open a crack, and ask the guy to call for help.
I don’t drive anymore, so it’s all moot anyway. When I was on crutches, going home from the bus stop, a guy stopped to give me a ride. I told him no, not because I was about half a block from home, but because I hate men.
Clearly, you are supposed to refuse the drink but sleep with him anyway. And then never go to a bar again, because sleeping with more than one dude ever would be gauche.
yeah you you big muscly man you!! sorry no one talks like that….The woman probably just said no thanks and he went off OMGWTFBBQ!!!!
Worry not: r/mr has its share of bogus misogynistic stories, too. During my one and only adventure in MR, there was a story about a guy doing some gardening or other type stuff with his class, and according to the tale, the feminist girls in the class (including the head of a feminist student organization, no less) were haughty and refused to work on the grounds girlsdon’twork, while the boys in the class stoically did their job and donchaknow feminists are therefore hypocrites. No, I’m not going to look it up for a link, that place is just unpleasant.
r/mr: a w e s o m e.
A couple of months ago, my friends and I actually did get stranded at night with a flat tire we were unable to change. There was one lug nut that just wouldn’t budge. Not even the good-looking man we’d brought along for just such an emergency (i.e. my husband) could get it off.
So we called AAA. Which is the way this story ends in the real world.
(We felt strangely vindicated when the AAA guy couldn’t get the lug nut off either, and had to drag out a motorized wrench thingy to take care of it. The problem wasn’t our weak girly arms after all!)
The problem was your auto shop that used a motorized wrench thingy to put on the lug nuts and did not pop them back a quarter turn so that a normal human being could change the tire if they had to.
Always ask the auto shop to not tighten the nuts past normal elbow-grease levels.
Aw, dammit, he’s ruining it for me!
James: The problem isn’t the use of an air-hammer (the motorised wrenchy thing). A calibrated air-hammer will use a torque loading that’s both secure, and removable.
“Popping” the lug back a quarter turn is actually worse than leaving it overtight, as that removes almost all the bearing pressure you need to securely seat the lugnut. It makes it much more likely a lugnut will work loose.
It’s also not a given the problem was an-over-torqued lug, at least not as described. If it had been all the lugs, then yeah, that’s the likely problem. if it was only one the more likely cause is that the lug, or the nut was damaged, and that allowed for bit of corrosion welding.
/removes machinist’s cap
I know that feeling. 🙂
I’ve pretty much given up conquering lug nuts, but that’s more because I have a bona fide shoulder-related disability that makes my arm strength even punier than the statistical adult average, and less because my arms are connected to a girl body. That’s why God made AAA, after all.
I have stopped to help a dude change a tyre. He was a muscly, good looking, rugby playing dude. But basic jack usage was beyond him. So he sat there looking awkward as this nelly-boy changed his tyre.
Thus I can prove that you do not have to be a virile heterosexual male to change a tyre. I assume I am part of the global assault on men being men, and am misandrist for changing the dudes tyre.
Or perhaps he’s misandrist. After all, he did not offer to sleep with me afterwards.
I’ve changed a lot of tires. Accepting that I am male, I’m still not “burly”. My mother taught me some tricks.
Get low. Put the lug-wrench so that it’s at the 11 o’clock position. With your arms almost straight, lean back; using your abs/legs. It’s sort of like doing a crunch. Pull as close to the end of the wrench as you can. Since most lugs will be on at less than 100 ft. lbs, this is almost always going to come free.
If it doesn’t, put the wrench at the 10 o’clock position and step on it. If it will bear your weight, without turning; and it feels stable, bounce.
If those don’t work… your roadside service provider.
I got a flat on the interstate once. My dad had shown me how to change a tire, but I was dubious that I remembered what to do, as it had been about 10 years. A guy pulled up to help me, fortunately. This was before cell phones, so I couldn’t just call AAA (and also the primary reason I got a cell phone in the first place). But it was the middle of the day and there wasn’t much traffic and we were in the middle of nowhere, and being a crazy paranoid feminazi I couldn’t help noticing the guy was driving a windowless van which my silly ladybrain always identifies as “rape van.” Fortunately a highway patrol car pulled up behind us. He just sat there, keeping an eye on things and alerting the other traffic.
Of course the guy in the van pulled away and I immediately told the state trooper he assaulted me, then fixed my tire. And I stole his sperm. TRUE FAX.
Meanwhile, elsewhere in MRAland:
OMG! It’s so unfair that people always think guys can change tires! You know the majority of tire related homicide happens to MEN! Why are there no rallies for that?1?!
I just keep thinking of some (imaginary) lady standing in a little damp pool of her own helpless lady tears, while our Brad Pitt look-alike hero strides by her all like “nuh UH bitch!” It’s the mental image that his fantastic writing has wrought. It sounds totally real and legit and like a thing that would happen. 😀
*has been a loyal customer of AAA since the summer of 1993 when I drove myself and mah stuff to Texas in five days despite my grandmother’s laments that I had no man to attend me*
What’s funny is that when we get a flat, or other problem, and call the 800 AAA number, we usually get a service call center in Houston, and the poor person on the other end is flabbergasted that we cannot give her street names and cross streets (we are out in the boonies on HWY 224 or 34 or CR 1033 S and there is no cross street), but we haz learned that there is only one triple A rated towing service in the area, and we know who they are, and we tell the nice city person to tell the BB service where we are, and they know, and they will find us.
Amazing how surprised SOME city people are to find that there are human inhabitants in the wild wastes beyond the urban limits.
Oh, and the nice young men who drive the tow trucks are always wonderful, and arrive quickly, and often offer a ride back to town if the car needs to be towed.
One time, when I got stuck in a muddy ditch that I didn’t realize was there just a half mile from my own house (I was trying to get down an overgrown driveway to an abandoned house where the people had moved out after foreclosure but left their Rottweiler–the man the bank sent out came down to our house and ask about whether people were there or not, or if the dog was truly abandoned, and I dashed out to rescue him), I tried to convince the nice young man that he needed a loving rottweiller (the dog was rolling on his feet, kissing him at the moment), but he said he already had three dogs, thank you, ma’am. So he towed my truck out, I took the rottweiller to the vet we work with, and we found him a home, happy ending.
ithiliana: But we know you secretly trained it to, “sic balls”, just in case some woman wanted to attack a man.
🙂
LOL, we are seriously supposed to believe this?
I’ve had car trouble from time to time and I have never turned down the help of strangers, despite their looks. But you know what WOULD happen if I was to be assaulted by one of these strangers? It would probably be blamed on me. I should know better than to talk to someone when stranded on the side of the road you know.
I mean, this story is absurd. Even if it was true, that’s one shitty person in a sea of decent people. Nobody would see this behavior and be like,”Go girl!” because it’s cruel and ridiculous.
My issue with the story though is that, upon being denied his assistance, he just up and decides to go to the coffee shop and watch her. WTF? Is anyone else troubled by this tidbit? Because he said he was driving home, not driving to a coffee shop. So I mean, what, was he lying in wait for her to fail and come crawling back to him? Soaking up every second he watched her struggle? That’s some straight up CREEPER behavior. Any kind deed he offered is immediately countered by the following action. That need to be there to say, “I told you so” and gain revenge. What a nice guy.
I’m getting seriously tired of the misogyny coming from MRAs. Do you want to know what happened on Monday? Around noon, a man stabbed a woman he didn’t even know TO DEATH in my city because he felt that women had wronged him for far too long and he was never going to have a good relationship and so he wanted to kill some woman to pay for the suffering he had endured. He was only two weeks out of prison for a felony assault charge. The woman he murdered in cold blood was just walking on the sidewalk minding her own business when he jumped out of the bushes and stabbed her until she died.
I live in a small town, one that is not known for inner city violence.
I just have to keep asking myself, what will it take to finally get to a point where people will realize that these misogynistic attitudes lead to VERY dangerous thoughts and behaviors that dehumanize women?
I must also mention that many times if I’m having trouble, people refuse to offer to help me. I don’t really mind this because generally, when someone comes by and offers to help, a lot of the time their body language and their tone of voice indicates that they may have an ulterior motive for offering their assistance. Most of the time, when I need help, I ask others for it. It’s much easier to accept help from a stranger if I ask them politely and they accept because I know there is no shady reason they approached me.
When people get randomly stabbed to death by strange men for no other reason than she was walking down the street in broad daylight, you have to wonder- maybe the reason why women feel safe only when they INITIATE contact with strangers, it’s because of shit like this?
Cliff:
The rest of her brain is devoted to wanting equal pay.
Nobi:
AntZ regaled us with some ridiculous tale about
Falconer:
Tramp!
Whoops, got distracted. Some ridiculous tale about picking up a hitchhiker and deigningto fuck a fat woman he moved into his house. Or something.