The Terrible Tale of Tuesday's Two Flat Tires

Tongue tied yet? Even if the Ts of the post title didn't trip me up, I'm certainly speechless. I'm still working my brain through the fact that at this time next week, Andy and I will be the proud owners of not one, not two, but eight new tires.

Pourquoi?

Well, yesterday morning, I woke up to the sound of Andy heading off to work in the truck. Only I didn't just hear tires crunching on gravel. I heard: thump, thump, thump.

I may not be a mechanical genius, but even I know something up when your tires make a decided thump: something known as a flat tire. And this was an all or nothing flat tire. It wasn't just low on air, it was out of air. The passenger's side back tire was resting on its rim.

It wasn't a huge surprise.Andy'd spent most of Monday out grouse hunting on the county's back roads and had driven on one road currently under-construction which, in the past week, has gotten a bit of  a reputation for causing flat tires. It's gotten such a reputation in fact, that local residents who live along the road are encouraging anyone with a flat tire to contact the construction company. But 6:45 in the morning, is no time for pointing fingers. Andy needed to get to work.

The only issue (other than that I'd be planning to take a vehicle to work myself . . . hello walking!) was that our alternative vehicle, the Subaru, has had a slow leak in its passenger's side back wheel for most of the summer. I'd driven the Suby around last and the tire had a reached a level of lowness where I didn't feel comfortable driving it anymore until it got some air in it. Nevertheless, Andy headed off in it on his 25 mile commute.

When he got to work, Andy called. The Subaru'd had a blow out on the way to work. According to Andy, the tire now "has a hole you could put your fist through." I guess that was one way to fix the slow leak.

By the end of day, the Subaru was rocking a donut, the truck has a spare on, and both vehicles had appointments for new sets of tires.

There are plenty of bright sides to this. For one, we'll now have brand new tires just in time for slippery winter driving months. For another, no one was injured in the tire drama and it's caused only mild inconvenience.

But, let me tell you, this was not on my little Post-It note of planned expenses for the month.

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Don't's into Do's

"You know," Andy said the other night as we driving down the road, "I can pretty accurately predict your future by paying attention to what you say you'll never do."

"What?!" I spluttered.

And then I thought about it. "I'll never move back to my hometown." Wait a minute . . . "I'll never live in the woods." Oh yeah. "I'll never drive a stick shift." Hmmm . . . 

That's right, as of Sunday afternoon, Andy and I are now the proud owners of Subaru Baja. (It might not be a looker, but I feel like my life could use some all wheel drive right about now.)

You might remember back when I penned my cryptic, "Catching an Edge" post in March. That's when the dear old Corolla and I had a bit of a wrestle with some black ice. The wrestle ended fine for me, but poorly for the Corolla. While I'd like to say we can easily survive as a one car household, the truth is that two months with just one car was plenty long enough.

So when our neighbors put their Subaru up for sale, the opportunity seems right for all involved parties. There's only one problem. I don't drive manuals.

When I really look at my life, I'm surprised by all the "don'ts." I find. I don't eat seafood. I don't drive stick shifts. I don't crochet. I don't, I don't, I don't.

Life is short. Too short for "don't"s.

So when you see me lurching off from a stop sign this summer, you'll know I'm busy turning my "don'ts" into "dos"

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A B.A. Doesn’t Get You Out of Washing Cars

What do you do with a B.A. in English? -- Princeton, Avenue Q

The summer after I graduated from college, I worked at a canoe outfitters. I did a lot of things when I worked there, namely transporting guests to the starting points of their canoe trips and spending a lot of time in the packing room, putting together the guests’ food packs. There was a lot of cleaning involved in the job too and often times, when we were getting low on priority things to do, we were asked to clean the vans that we used to transport guests.

I feel far enough removed from the experience to safely admit that I disliked . . . . no, I abhorred washing and cleaning the vans. It just wasn’t much fun. I hated trying (and usually failing) to get all of the windows completely smudge free. I disliked crawling around the filthy floors with a Shop-Vac.

Indeed, I got pretty good at finding something else to do whenever I feared some van cleaning might be in order. I had a college degree after all. Let the lowly high school graduate (sorry Andrew) take one for the team and scrub down the vans. I didn't spend four years getting a B.A. for nothing. Heck, no was I going to make my living washing cars.

And still . . .

I have known for a while now that my car is certifiably disgusting. Still, I was waiting for the “big ah-ha” that would signal it was time to actually wash the car. When you live pretty far out of town and your driveway is gravel, it can seem pointless to wash your car: it’s just going to get dirty again. But  when I realized I was mildly embarrassed to pick up my car from the mechanic this afternoon, I knew my car was approaching a state of filth that warranted washing. 

As I approached the car, it became apparent. My car was not close to needing to be cleaned; it needed to be cleaned.

There’s been a lot of pollen in the air and what wasn’t in the air, was apparently on my car. That was kind of gross.

But the real clincher was when I realized my car so resembled a bit of nature that a bunch of diarrhea-stricken birds had decided to converge on it in the mechanic’s parking lot.

 Eureka!

The abundance of bird shite forced me to take a good hard look at the Corolla, inside and out.

A lot of the gravel driveway had migrated onto the floor.

There had been some trips to town when the coffee jumped out of the mug. (We have travel mugs, we just usually can’t find them.)

So I washed my car. And I Windexed the windows and wiped down the dusty, dusty dashboard. I vacuumed out the whole car. Of course, it really didn’t take that long.

Here’s the shiny Corolla. A bit less sparkly after the 60-mile drive home from town, but sooooo much better.

What do you do with a B.A. in English? Well, for one thing, you can wash cars.

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