Remember the good old days when if you needed something done you could hire someone to do it? You didn't have to worry about anything like where to find a part or how to repair anything. You used to be able to pull up to a gas station, where someone would actually come out and pump the gas for you, check your oil and clean your windshield. All you had to do was pay for the gas and be on your way. Now we have entered the "do it yourself era". You pump your own gas and check out your own groceries. There's a book on how "dummies" can learn to do anything by just reading a few pages and applying the lessons learned.

One of the few things left that you can still opt to have a professional do is maintenance on your car. You can go through one of the many drive thrus that offer oil changes and engine maintenance. With the way things are going, it might be better to start to learn how to do these tasks yourself, not just to save money, but who knows how long you will be able to rely on someone else to change things like your oil filter.

Women in particular are now starting to learn how to do things that were usually left to men, such as changing the tires or oil, and checking the different fluid levels in the engine. I remember when my wife had to call me at work because the car didn't start. She felt really bad when I showed up and all that had to be done was to jiggle the gear shift into park. Her face was so red!

I remember that she made me a nice dinner to try and make up for it and we talked about how she could learn more about cars so this type of thing would not happen any more. We started a little weekend training program. I really don't know that much about cars, but I was able to teach her all the basics.

We sort of worked through it all together. I was learning a lot at the same time as she was. We changed the oil in the car and played around with the spark plugs. We also practiced changing a tire so she would know how to do that in case she was ever stuck. After we had practiced some of the basic maintenance things with the car I actually caught my wife reading a book on how to keep your Chevy maintained.

It was really cool to see her working so hard to be independent. Now my wife doesn't mind taking the car to the shop because she feels comfortable that she will know what they are talking about when they discuss the cars problems.