Bits Of Babbling

I Have a Tire in my Room

Were you to walk in my room, after commenting on how messy it is, you would probably notice as you scanned the room in more detail that it contains a car tire. That's right, there is a tire located directly below the poster depicting a loathsome, offensive, brute from which you can't look away. However, if you DID manage to look away, you would see that right next to my desk, there is a tire. What is that tire doing there you ask? Well, I'm glad you asked and I'm happy to tell you, if you didn't ask then I am quite sad and you don't have to listen. :(

Assuming your curiosity has been piqued and you are now wondering if I have an obsession with collecting tires or if this particular tire has any sort of significance, then you can give yourself a pat on the back and 5 gold stars if you picked the latter. If you got it wrong, go back and try again. Don't worry I won't tell - but I may only give you 4 gold stars if it takes you 3 tries or more. Enough wasting time though, its time for me to regale you with the tale of my intrepid adventure on the highway.

The story takes place at the tail end of our summer vacation in 2003, I was driving back to the university to take my rightful place in my apartment. It seems as though there may have been a holiday of some sort around that time - I'm sure you would know better than I do, I'm lucky to remember Halloween, Christmas and New Years, there is little chance of me remembering things like Memorial Day, Labor Day, or St Patrick’s Day (Which led to many a pinch when I was younger) But holiday or not, I was a man determined to reach my destination posthaste. The highway had other plans in store for me as I would soon discover.

I was heading along at a good clip when I began to approach the 610 loop. Almost exactly one mile before the loop, the traffic which was flowing as smoothly as water in an open drain, hit a hair clog. I cursed my luck, but this wasn't unexpected, the 610 loop always clogs up traffic. So stewing in my seat as the stagnant traffic inched forward I began to hear a sound. You know the sound, the screeeeee some cars make as they hit the brakes. I looked to my right with slight annoyance at the white van in the next lane over because this wasn't any normal noise, it was obnoxiously loud.

Traffic inched forward.

Screeeeeeee

The thought dawned upon me that in this sea of cars, my car could be the culprit of the noise pollution. It was time to test the theory. Traffic moves forward - the van beside me stealthily advanced, my truck was not so stealthy. Screeeee To make matters worse, I noticed that it felt as though I was driving over gravel on the right side of my car but not the left side. A quick peak ahead of me revealed no such gravel, and yet I could feel it. This doesn't bode well for our hero.

I began to think about pulling over to the shoulder - but the thought came too late! The next time the car moved forward POP! Smoke arose from the front-right tire, and the car hunched over as though it were auditioning for a part in The Hunchback of Notre Dame. I was in the second to left-hand lane, and in this dense traffic there was little chance of me making it across the 3 other lanes to arrive to safety in the shoulder, so I opted to try going left where the difficulty was merely one lane. Unfortunately, this was the time when traffic magically decided to pick up - as though there were no traffic jam! Traffic was flowing and none of the jerks on the left side would let me over. The right side offered no sympathy either and the people behind me honked impatiently at my crippled car. Finally I took advantage of a small gap in the ever-flowing wall and made a break for it.

Upon arriving safely in the shoulder I called my mom to let her know of my minor delay - of course she wasn't at home, and there is a 15% chance I will get ahold of her if I call her cell phone. I wasn't very lucky. So I opted to call my dad's cell phone and was rewarded for my effort with the sound of his voice. As a side note, our voices are nearly indistinguishable from each other on the phone, even my Mom gets us confused. I told him what happened and he asked where I was - ends up he had just flown in from Dallas (Yea, I don't keep track of when he travels very well) and Mom was meeting him at the Airport, which is maybe 5 minutes from where I am. I called AAA and they told me a tow truck would come for me sometime within the next week few hours.

My dad arrived and como locos we decided to try changing the tire out with a spare, I hadn't looked at the tire yet because I figured it was a standard flat - there was nothing standard about this. So anyway, in the left shoulder, fixing the right front tire, with traffic buzzing by us, we managed to change the tire with the spare. My parents used their car to let me get into traffic - I pull into the fast lane and weave out of it, the gravel feeling again. But wait! Maybe that was a fluke, as I slow down it stops.. so again I weave into traffic and again the gravel feeling occurs. This isn't going to work, I need to be towed.

We waited in the sweltering heat for help to arrive, I made short work of the 1-Liter bottle of Deja Blue water I always buy for my 3 hour trek between the apartment and my parent's house. Finally the tow truck driver came and had a look at the tire and proclaimed he had never seen ANYTHING like it happen to anybody. His theory was that it had something to do with the brakes. He also made sure that we knew we were crazy for changing the tire on the highway, as though we weren't aware of the fact. After hooking the car to his truck, I climbed into the cab with him to give directions to our repair spot of choice, which happens to be owned by a family friend. Coincidentally enough, the truck had been there only days before and checked for any problems while they were fixing a problem with the tailgate not closing correctly.

The ride was an interesting one, he told me that some OTHER people flagged him down and said he was THEIR driver, the nerve of them trying to steal MY tow truck! On the way to the garage, we passed two or three other accidents within the short stretch of freeway that we traveled, it was crazy out there. Another point of interest is that this guy seemed to be kind of racist, but I won't get into it here. But I did think it kind of interesting because apparently he has had a lot of trouble with black people wanting to beat the tar out of him in the past which explained his need to carry a shotgun in the cab.

That is about the end of my eventful afternoon, I went ahead and stole my Mom's jeep to drive to my apartment that evening... The ol' "Fall off the horse and get back on" philosophy I guess. I later found out that the mechanics had never seen anything like what happened to my tire either - when I screw things up I sure do it well!

I suppose by now you have been wondering what has been so fantastic about the tire's malfunction, wondering why I didn't describe it any of the 3 times I mentioned its fantastic nature. Well, I would have, but it is much more impressive to see than to read, observe:
Exhibit A
Exhibit B
Exhibit C

So why do I keep the tire? Simple. It reminds me not only how lucky I was, but of the feeling I had during the event. The feeling in question is that a higher power was looking out for me. You can scoff if you don't believe it, but that's how I felt and can you really blame me? There were a lot of coincidences that happened to not only surrounding the problem with the tire, but in my safety and the safety of the surrounding cars. Allow me to enumerate some of them:
1) Car is inspected during other repairs for problems and nothing is found
2) Traffic literally came to an abrupt halt just before the problem occurred (I don't want to know what would have happened if I had continued at my previous speed when it happened)
3) Traffic resumed to normal just after it happened, literally
4) My parents happened to be like 5 minutes away at the time, and additionally my dad had JUST turned on his cell phone as he was exiting the terminal

Well, that's my story and the reason there is a tire that sits within two feet of me. If you didn't fall asleep and made it this far, give yourself another 5 gold stars and feel free to leave some comments.

Posted by Michael at April 19, 2004 05:58 PM