I consider myself a bit of a jack of all trades, master of a few. But overall, there’s not much I won’t weigh in on, qualified or not. I’ve never really let a lack of qualifications stop me from having a fairly strong opinion.
I’d heard some rumours from our daughter Tess, who had been riding with Mom in her car, that Mom was complaining about a new noise. I told Tess, “It’s nothing.” Mom had recently gotten new tires, so I just dismissed it as a change in the road noise and not an actual problem.
But the comments continued until one day a week or so ago, when I came out of the shed to find Mom sitting quietly in the driveway waiting for me.
She asked if I’d take the car for a ride and have a listen.
So off we went. Mom said, “Hear it?”
I listened. Sounded like just a bit of road noise to me.
“It’s nothing.”
Mom disagreed.
I did admit that maybe I wasn’t the best judge. I’m used to driving an old farm truck with 350,000 kilometres on it, so riding in Mom’s car seemed pretty luxurious to me. But we agreed she could take it to the tire shop and see what they said.
They said it was a wheel bearing.
Mom told me the news and, being the helpful and knowledgeable son that I am, I said, “It’s nothing. I drove it. I think they’re wrong.”
You have to admire the confidence at least.
So we decided to get another opinion from Steven Ross at Ross Automotive. Steve’s a nice, trustworthy local young fellow with a shop at his parents’ place on River Road, at the old tile yard. I love that I can say “the old tile yard” and that still means something to most people around here.
Mom made an appointment and we dropped the car off. She told Steven she thought the wheel bearing was gone.
Then I overruled.
“No, Steve. It’s nothing. But check it over so we can put this to bed.”
I’m sure you know where this is going.
A few hours later Steven called.
“Yeah, there’s definitely a bad noise in your Mom’s car. It’s a wheel bearing.”
Apparently, it was not nothing.
Well, I had to eat a little humble pie when I texted Mom with the news.
I do know a lot of things. But this week I forgot one thing that I’m sure I knew at some point.
Moms are always right.
Farmer Rod