It's A Man Thing

I rarely get to post about John, so I am going to take the opportunity to do so today. As most of you know, he recently got a Volkwagen Passat. He really likes it, and he treats it like his baby. It even gets washed more than mine, but that's ok. :)
On Saturday, John decided that the Passat needed its oil changed. Instead of paying someone to do this, he made up his mind to do it himself--in our garage. Normally I'm cool with stuff like that, but it's a foreign car, and it has proved to be very different from anything else he has tackled before. Even though I was hesitant, we went ahead and bought the oil and filter.
Let's just say the rest of Saturday evening was blown. John spent a total of 3 hours in the garage with the Passat up on ramps trying to figure out how to get to the oil filter. He read and re-read his computer program on it, fiddled with it, and finally gave up and came in the house.
During church on Sunday, I made a comment that maybe we could just take it to Kwik Kar or something and go ahead and let them do the oil change. After all, it isn't THAT expensive. That conversation passed and went to another subject without him making a comment on my suggestion. In fact, he held his comment until we were on our way to eat after church. While driving, he turned to me out of the blue and said, "Mel, you don't think I can change the oil in that car? Do you not have any faith in me?"
Oh good grief. Now what?
So instead of paying someone to do this oil change, he was bound and determined to do it. He took the kids to AutoZone and spent a good 2 hours in the garage finally getting everything taken off and put back together. I came out to check his progress, and he told me to watch the engine while he started it up. It all sounded good and looked good----for the first 10 seconds. Next thing I know, there's a HUGE oil spill in my garage.
Yup, the oil filter was the wrong size, so every bit of oil he put in was now on the garage floor. After much debate, we discovered that we had been given the wrong filter, so John and the kids had to go BACK to the store. I came in to the house and did the calculations...it cost us TWICE as much for John to change the oil as it would have cost us to have someone else do it. The way he saw it, it was a learning experience. He now knows how to do it, so it will save us money in the future. Oh well, guess it's a man thing...