That meant that, to make matters worse, I didn’t notice it until I was parked at the place I was dropping post cards, about 2 miles later. (I subsequently learned this meant the tire couldn’t just be patched – $35+tax – but had to be replaced – $100+tax. Taught me a lesson about always pulling over ASAP when something goes wonky…)

But I didn’t actually notice the flat myself. Two guys were walking from their pickup truck when one of them said, “You know you have a flat there?” And thus started the most subtlety gendered interaction I’ve had in a while.

The two guys were really nice, and not at all condescending about the flat or my bumper-sticker-covered car. But when I pulled the spare tire, the wrench, and the jack out of the trunk and put them next to the car, they immediately leaped in to take over. I’m not going to lie and say I’ve changed a lot of tires (or changed any tires) so their help was honestly appreciated, and they were super-nice about it all. One of them even saw my high school’s sticker on my car, and commented on how he’d graduated from there, too. (Albeit in ’79, not ’03.)

The whole thing took maybe five minutes, after which they refused any offers of payment. Fortunate, since I had a whopping $4 in my purse… But, as I said, while absolutely nothing in our interactions was unpleasant, rude, or condescending, there was a definite feel of “Let the men take care of this.”

Had I known what I was doing – were this a computer problem, say – the interaction might have been a bit condescending. But because I didn’t know what I was doing, even though I’m pretty confident I could have figured it out eventually, I didn’t feel like the interaction was condescending. (Confidence, in the face of ignorance, isn’t condescending. It’s just accurate.)

It was sort of an amusing gendered interaction, though. They made a joke – not threatening or mean at all – about how they usually watch out for “those bumper-sticker-having liberals,” but that they would make an exception for me. I’d like to think they would have been just as nice/forgiving if they’d read me as male, but I’m not convinced that would be true.

So I suppose the motivation behind the interaction, that women can’t deal with changing tires, was a little negative. And that fact that I enjoyed being gendered as female and the novelty of being “saved” by men reading me as female shouldn’t excuse their assumptions about gender roles.

Or maybe I’m thinking way too much about all this, and should just appreciate a good deed wherever I find it.