Day 271 – September 30 – Unintended Adventure
By LoriSeeger. Filed in 11 Minutes a Day |
My friend Barb called as I was getting off work tonight and wanted to know if I wanted to meet her for dinner at a local rib place. It’s cold and wet here, and we hadn’t talked in forever, so dinner out sounded like fun. She said that she even had her knitting with her, we could kick back and get something done. I worked on the beret while I waited for her to arrive from work and while we were waiting for our meals to arrive. We both worked on our projects after we had eaten and they had cleared the table, while we caught up on what had been happening in our lives. Everything was great.
We went out to our cars, to go our separate ways. Since we were on my side of town in an area I’m very familiar with, I ended up getting on the freeway ahead of her. I hadn’t gone far and I started hearing an odd noise coming from the rear of the truck on the driver’s side. The tires had been fine when I walked around the truck at the restaurant and I really thought it was probably some piece of debris. But as I drove the noise got worse and finally the truck handled funny. I quickly pulled off to the side of the road just past the clover leaf exit ramps but in still along the access lane, put the flashers on got out, looked at the shredded tire and knew that I wasn’t going anywhere without changing it.
Now I’ve changed the tires on the truck before. It’s actually not difficult. I have a full size spare and tire iron with long arms so I have the needed leverage to get the nuts off, to remove the old one. But it’s dark, the traffic is zipping by at more than 70mph and I’m not stupid or suicidal. So I called Barb hoping that she hadn’t made it to her exit ramp yet. She has roadside assistance and immediately said that she would call for help as she wasn’t going to watch me get killed trying to change a tire on a dark rainy night. It turns out that describing our location must have been one of the most confusing things they had ever heard. We quickly realized that it needed to appear that we were driving each others vehicle. The guy wasn’t sure how to get the spare out from under the truck, and I had to appear like I really didn’t know where everything was or how to use it all. I’m coaching Barb on where to find the jack, and all the associated parts, which keys control what, and oh didn’t I see that she had a spare hat in her bag in the truck, so she didn’t have to get cold and wet in the rain. The tires got switched. The destroyed one went into the bed, the bits to hold the spare in place went into the glove box and we each drove the others car to the next exit where we traded off and headed home. We agreed that we tend to have the weirdest adventures.
So I did more than get my 11 in tonight, but the fiber joy was much tempered by the adventure on the freeway.
Where’s the oddest place you’ve every had to get a tire changed?
Saturday, October 1st 2011 at 8:16 am |
Remember that scene, years ago on Frasier, where Niles wants to confront Maris’ fencing instructor, who speaks German. But Niles only speaks English. Frasier speaks spanish, and the maid only speaks spanish and german? (Did that program do Farce like noone else?)
Anyway, that’s what you freeway adventure reminded me of, and thank you. I’m still laughing.
Sunday, October 2nd 2011 at 7:32 am |
Not a wierd place, but circumstances. I was a teenager and my dad, an army reserve man who tried to run the family like Army, worked third shift. Mom told me when she was leaving to tell him when he woke up our 66 Dodge polara had a flat. Well, being a teen, I had to listen to music and promptly woke him up accidentally. Wasn’t going to tell him then…so I proceeded to change the tire myself, all 95 pounds of me. On an old car that had a big a$$. Did well until it came time to lift the full sized spare up onto the lugs. While I was trying a pickup truck kept driving past. About the time it decided to stop and help I got it up there. I knew the proper way to put the lugnuts back on thanks to WATCHING TV and even managed to get them on tight enough the guy at the service station had to use the air compressor to get them off. I came off a little dirty but confident in my new skill. And didn’t get into trouble for waking Dad, who had gone back to sleep after fussing at me for waking him. Being a night shift worker myself now I can’t do that. You wake me up, I’m up for several more hours.