Blowout

You never really learn to swear until you learn to drive. ~Author Unknown

What a lucky thing the wheel was invented before the automobile; otherwise can you imagine the awful screeching? ~Samuel Hoffenstein

On my way to the conference today, I felt prepared. I had set up my MP3 player and was riding and daydreaming to the sounds of the Rolling Stones. Traffic was getting heavier, but it was moving at a good pace, and the herd was calm.

The closer I got to the airport turn-off the less I was daydreaming and the more my mind was on the Stack Tiers of Doom that I was about to have to navigate. I was in the left lane doing 75-80 (just keeping up with traffic, officer, I swear) when I became aware the car was pulling really hard to the left. Then I heard that horrible friction-thud sound from the front left part of the car. It sounds like lots and lots of little people in combat boots running in circles in the wheel well.

This is an experience I have had before. The first time I was driving the Evil Jeep after I bought it, I was returning to college after Thanksgiving holidays. It blew a tire about 30 miles away from home, and it sounded the same way. That, of course, was just the tip of the iceberg with the Evil Jeep, but I didn't know it then. I've never forgotten that sound, though. If you've ever had it happen, you know it's very distinctive.

I knew the tire was shredded, but I was moving very fast and there really wasn't much of a roadside to pull off on at that point. There was, however, a vast median of grass, so I put on my flashers, my blinker, and pulled hard left. I managed to stop before I flipped or tore up too much grass. Fortunately, I was on the left side of the interstate and so was the damaged tire because nobody in the increasingly dense traffic could slow or even move over.

What I saw confirmed my suspicions. The tire looked like something my cat Yoda might have gotten really irritated with. Tiny bits of steel belting glinted through the ripped surface, and that acrid smell of overheated and burned rubber overpowered even the diesel exhaust smell from the traffic beside me.

My first thought after this was exceptionally vulgar. Fill in with the word of your choice. My second thought was how in the world (also edited for TV) I was going to get my limping Cruiser from Point A on the left-hand side of the interstate to Point B, an exit about a half-mile down the road on the right side of the interstate through the morning rush hour's growing tides. I got in the car, made a panicked call to Mom and Dad to tell them the situation (because, since I am sans husband, they get all the oh crap calls), and cranked up.

By the grace of God, there was a sudden huge lull in the traffic. Doing about thirty, I managed to cross over and creep toward the exit without getting mangled. The little men with combat boots were running around again, and in addition to them, the high-pitched shrill of metal on asphalt sounded. About the time I managed to reach the safety of the off-ramp, the forerunners of the next traffic wave blew past me with enough speed to rock the car slightly.

I pulled off in a Ruby Tuesday's parking lot, locked everything down, took my life into my own hands, dashed across a five-lane thoroughfare, and hid out in a Starbucks until Mom and Dad could come to assist. I don't hang out in coffee shops much. Podunk isn't exactly on the cutting front of popular urban beverage chains. It was mostly nice. I had something called a Green Tea Chai Latte. It had enough caffeine in it to make every synapse in my brain fire and hum at an almost audible pitch. I cut its bitter goodness with the sweet from a danish, staked out a comfortable chair in a sunny corner near the window, took out a Greg Iles novel, and sat down to wait.

As I read, I also surreptitiously listened to some wonderfully absurd conversation from the prissy tyrant behind the counter as he ordered his minions to sling coffee faster, with more accuracy, and with greater flair. He was overgroomed and his hands flew through the air in complex arabesques that make even my most grandiose gesture seem pale and tame. His voice, while well-pitched, had a cadence I usually associate with sorority girls or the stereotypical intonation of the "dumb blonde", and it rose at the end of every single sentence leaving unintentional question marks hovering dangerously, even sinisterly, in the air around us all.

The last bit of orders I heard before my cell rang to tell me help had arrived was him saying that nobody was going to be allowed to go to the bathroom during the morning rush, which, as I understand it, actually comprises several hours. He was also telling some poor "managerial trainee" that "you'll only be getting, like, 20 hours on the clock, but you'll actually be working more like 38 or 40..." It was great. If I were a fiction writer, I could have mined that coffee shop like a lode of silver.

Nothing in my family is ever straightforward or easy. We tried to change the tire, but after removing the lugs, the offending wheel simply would NOT come off the car. We wiggled, kicked, jiggled, swivelled, cursed, and tugged, but it stayed where it was. After we exhausted our options, I tried to get a to a phonebook from the Ruby Tuesday's to find the nearest dealership to get some advice. Since it was too early for RT's to be open, the little guy inside merely stared at me from the kitchen and walked away. I'm not kidding. He couldn't be bothered to find out what was going on even though my car had been stranded in his parking lot with people buzzing around it for the past hour. I'm still irritated about that. I don't think I looked like a homicidal maniac or a teenage job hopeful, so would it have killed him to at least come to the door?

Anyway, Wendy's next door was much nicer and I got the information. They weren't open, either, but the ladies inside handed me the book through the drive up window. This was the dealership's august and sage advice: "Yeah, sometimes they get stuck a little. Just kick it hard at the bottom til it comes off." Right. Great. Thanks. We wound up calling a friend of mine's father who came with a very large hammer and he and my dad finally got the wheel off.

We followed my friend's parents to a local tire service center, Dad went home, and Mom and I sat to wait to get everything taken care of. Much of the rest of the afternoon is a surreal blur of eating, shopping, and sitting in the lobby of a Kroger near the tire shop as they enacted a French farce in which they ordered a tire from another location across town, received the wrong size and sent for the correct one, and finally installed it four-and-a-half hours after the initial accident. I'm not blaming them, btw. They were very nice people. It was just one of those stupid days.

I was so worn out that I just loaded Mom up in the car and we came back home. Sometime during our Kroger time, it occurred to me just how close I probably came to having a major wreck. At the time, adrenaline had me too occupied to think much, and the ensuing crapfest of trying to find help, etc., continued it. I am just grateful, even though I missed a day of the conference and forfeited the CEU credits, that I am safe and my car is still okay.

Tomorrow, I'll head back to Jackson for the final day. I'll probably have the radio cranked up and be trying to brace myself mentally for the Stacks. I can guarantee you, however, that I will be looking for those wheel marks in the scrubby heat browned grass on the left margin and that I'll continue to be thankful that today wasn't as bad as it could have been.