Today is not my day.
I honestly should not have gotten out of bed. Weighing my options this morning, I figured I
needed to save up what little time I do have for when I go on vacation this
summer. Ergo, I got up, took a shower,
got dressed, and headed off to work.
Since my brother is home this week, we opted to carpool. We took my car. Now, my car is a feisty little thing that
enjoys making all sorts of noises. I
know each and every one of those noises, so when I’m on the highway doing 80mph
and I hear a brand new noise that I know doesn’t belong, I get wary. I slowed down, got out of the fast lane and
went over to the right hand slow lane, consistently breaking slowly as I
did. Just as I was about to pull onto
the shoulder. BOOM! My tire exploded. Tread flew up in front of the car, smoke
spread out everywhere, and my car is wobbling on the rim.
Luckily (and thankfully)
– and I’m pretty sure this is because I was already breaking – I didn’t
lose control of the car. I slowly eased
it onto the shoulder and came to a stop.
My brother who was riding shotgun goes to get the spare out of the
trunk. It’s a donut tire, which would
have been enough to get us off the highway.
It was – however – flat. No
good. I call my husband, tell him to
come get us and call AAA. While we’re
waiting for him a State Farm Road Ranger pulls up behind us. Brian (my husband) arrives not long
after. All in all we waited maybe twenty
minutes. Brian asks the Road Ranger if
he has an air compressor. The Road
Ranger firmly expresses his belief that we shouldn’t try to patch the blown
tire.
…
There was absolutely no way to patch that. Unless you’re MacGyver – even then there are
just some things beyond repair. Brian explained we wanted it for the
spare. The Road Ranger helps him change
it while my brother and I take the truck that Brian picked us up in.
It was on empty.
…
We make it to a gas station off the highway, I find a
dollar, get coffee, get gas, head to work.
Work was…well it wasn’t a happy day.
It was frustrating, annoying, and made me want to throw a computer
through the window. That’s putting
mildly. I actually broke out into a fit
of laughter just because of the absurdity of people. I’m not joking. On the way home the lane to the turnpike was
blocked in two different areas. What
should have been a fifteen minute drive turned into forty minute one. That was just to GET ON the highway.
Okay, I’m going to stop now before I run the risk of
sounding like a petulant child who still needs to write a short story for
class.
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