Yesterday was a pretty fucked up day from the get go. First the garden was a swamp. Then I drove to work & wouldn't you know it, it started raining. Pouring down. Have I mentioned how shitty the windshield wipers on the van are? They don't wipe off the water, they leave assorted bands with various levels of visibility in a cute rainbow pattern all over the windshield. It's not too bad unless the rain's really coming down & yesterday it was.
Luckily, traffic was light & I was familiar with where I was going so I didn't have any problem. I just went extra slow & Mr. Magooed my way to work. Then I was almost there & it started hailing. Great. That only lasted a couple of minutes & stopped soon after I parked. Unfortunately, they were able to add a second shift at work but they weren't able to add a second parking lot, so when I get there I usually have to park in the street, hopefully in front of the building but sometimes it's down the block a ways.
Of course, yesterday it was over the river & through the woods. I waited a couple minutes & the rain seemed to slack off a little. At least until after I got out of the van. By the time I got inside I was drenched. Dripping wet. My jeans felt like they just got out of the washing machine.
But at least I made it to work. Surely things were going to start getting better, & they did. At least after they figured out where everybody was working. They had a schedule posted but it was wrong. It had the positions for Monday, but also for Tuesday. Apparently the lady that put the schedule up had gone through a time warp or something & jumped right over Monday. So they ended up having to go over the whole thing & redo it. I don't know why they couldn't just have everybody do what it said they were supposed to do Monday, or even go ahead & do what it said for Tuesday. Most of the other workers had already started working & had to move to a different position.
Eventually everything worked out. We even had a little birthday party for one of the workers. No cake was involved but Candace got a blizzard & everybody else got ice-cream bars. Happy birthday get back to work.
Then I drove home.
Or tried to.
I drove maybe a mile when I heard thumpthumpthump. Sounded like a problem with the tire but it drove okay, so I drove up about a block to a gas station & pulled over. I got out & looked at the tire. Looked fine. Not flat at all. Maybe it was loose so I checked the lug nuts. All of them were nice & tight.
That's when I noticed something sticking out of the tread. It looked like a couple of washers, then some kind of thick plastic tube about an inch tall with maybe a screw or nail or something holding it all together.
Now, I'm no auto mechanic, but even I could tell that wasn't supposed to be there.
I tried to wiggle it. Maybe it was somehow just wedged in between the tread & I could pop it out.
No. It was in there good & tight. The tire was holding air at the time & if I did manage to rip whatever it was out the tire would undoubtedly start gushing air like a tea kettle.
I had a decision. Stay right there & call Keith to come save the day or go slow & try to limp it home.
I decided to try to make it home. I know it was probably a bad decision. Highway 79 is long and dark at 2am. If I had a blowout & ended up having to change the tire on the shoulder in the dark it could have ended badly.
I didn't make it home.
On the bright side, it didn't end badly.
About the time I got on 79 the thumpthumpthump sound quit. Whatever was sticking out of the tire was gone, but the van still drove fine. Now the only two questions that mattered were how big is the hole it left in the tire & how long until all the air inside the tire turned into air outside the tire.
Turns out, not small enough & not very long.
I got about a mile down the highway & heard that old familiar thumpthumpthump again. This time I also felt a little vibration in the steering wheel.
Damn it.
Luckily, it went flat right before I would have passed an auto repair shop. Instead, I limped the van into their parking lot & called Keith.
Surprise, Honey!
Luckily, about a month ago the truck started driving squirrely while we were out. Backfiring & losing power & generally driving really shitty. Then a week or so later the car started driving squirrely while I was driving home in the middle of the night all alone. It acted pretty much the same as the truck did.
Why was that lucky? Because I told Keith when he went to bed I wanted him to bring the cordless phone into the bedroom & put it on the headboard. So just in case anything happened & I got stuck on the way home in the middle of the night all alone he'd hear if I called.
I called.
He heard.
He swooped in like Superman & saved the day.
It took about a half an hour for Keith & Deana to get dressed & get everything in the truck & drive to where I was waiting, then about another half hour or so for the three of us to change the tire. Mario Adretti's pit crew we are not. On the bright side we weren't exactly the Three Stooges, either. It was just hard because the repair shop was closed so it was dark, & Keith's back is messed up so he had to do a little more coaching & directing instead of just taking care of business himself.
But he did eventually take care of business. We made it home about the same time I usually go to bed. They both went back to sleep while I finally had dinner & relaxed for a minute then went to bed myself. I think now that I've seen him change the tire I could probably do it myself.
Not like I'm going to tell him though.
My momma didn't raise no fools.
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