Changing Tires on a Moving Car

Not unusually, today I was obsessing about my personal problems. (I'm one of these sickeningly self-absorbed assholes who's always whining about DEPRESSION...I know, I know, but so far hating myself for it isn't really helping.)

So I went out for a walk and I just started thinking, "People really don't get how serious my problem is, it's really kind of a bitch to try to fix your broken mind when all you have to fix it with is a broken mind...yea, it's really kind of like the classic problem, changing a flat tire on a moving car."

And I was SO sick of thinking about it I just decided to figure that out.

You know, how to fix a flat tire...on a moving car. It's a vivid phrase because it's just seems so impossible--but IS it? If I had unlimited resources, and advance time to prepare, but just a normal car with normal tires and wheels--how could it ever be changed without stopping the car? Is it REALLY an unsolvable problem?

At first I thought, I'd need a computer-controlled robot that could calibrate and sync itself to the rotation of my wheels. But then I thought--NO, I wouldn't. I'd still need the robot, plus I'd need a small "trolley" device, something that a precision robot could reach out of the car, position BEHIND the flat tire, somehow solidly affix it to the axle and/or frame, and deploy, so that the probably TWO wheels on it could LIFT and SUPPORT the moving car. The trolley would just need to have two smaller wheels, one to go in front, and one behind, the flat tire.

But WAIT...I wouldn't even REALLY need that. I could imagine a SINGLE wheel trolley that would work as long as it could be rigidly attached, and pushed DOWN to lift and support the vehicle. But as if being PRACTICAL mattered, I can more easily imagine a two-wheeled device being stable, and the built-in lifting mechanism being simpler and easier to implement because there would be less "front to back" instability, with two wheels, it seems like it work be easier to make.

If you could do that, then program the robot--or even a person--to simply reach out, detach the defective wheel, pull it in, grab a spare, put it in position, screw in the lug nuts, and then reverse the installation of the trolley device, such that the car would once again be supported by its own four wheels.

Wow. Not that hard AFTER all.

Now..what the hell am I going to do about this stupid DEPRESSION?