Chrismas Break DOwn

Today Christmas went from normal and routine to strange and funny.
As usual on Christmas Eve/ Day, we spent the night at my in-laws. We all woke up this morning and were driven downstairs by my son. He tore though his gifts and was busily playing with them. We had some breakfast but were waiting around from my wife's cousins to show up with their kids to have Christmas dinner and spend the afternoon together. That is when the day took a turn. We got a call that they had had some sort of car trouble with there van and were sitting in an Applebee's parking lot on Sunrise Highway. They had a flat and couldn't get the spare off the back of the van. So me and my father-in-law got into his truck and drove out there. I suggested we bring a whole bunch of tools, but my father-in-law trumped me as he really does know something about cars and took just One socket wrench with One fitting and One pry bar and a can of WD-40. He was an expert even though we had no idea what the trouble was going to be...
Anyway we got out there almost immediately someone broke one of the bolts and we all knew what the solution was. We had to just break off the other bolt that held the tire on there. And so my wife's cousin and my father-in-law and me all started taking turns smashing the bolt with hammers and pry-bars trying to get the rusty bolt
to snap.
Then my cousin's kid got out of the van and he took his turn suggesting how to get this done and had his turn swinging the hammer.
My father-in-law took off with his niece and brought back more tools and all the men kept standing in each others' way, each one of us wanting to be THE ONE to get the damn bolt to snap. Never mind if there was a better solution...It seemed to become more important that each of us get to be the hero of the moment than any of us working together.
We finally figured out how to get the entire tire rack off the back of the van and drove it back to my in-laws' house. Another cousin had shown up by then and more arguments and pushing out of the way occurred until I finally found a grinder and started trying to cut the bolts. My wife and my mother-in-law both came out and started telling me to use safety goggles and I just ignored them as I saw my chance at being the one to get this finished. Anyway- I lost control of the project and it all went round and round a few more times and finally I can not remember who finally cut through the bolt and freed the tire but that is purely because of selective memory
as I learned just how important it is for a bunch of men to be the leader and savior on a project. It doesn't even matter if you have absolutely no idea what you are doing, what is important is being the one to fix the problem.Meanwhile all of the women in the family all went upstairs to my in-laws bed and lay there relaxing and talking and taking naps and I began to realize that it really is kind of tragic here in our family that none of this generation that I am part of could see to it to bring any grand daughters into this family. Sooner or later it becomes more and more obvious that that is what we are going to be missing.

DK