I have a flat tire, which might be a problem, mostly because I hate flat tires.
My car (actually a truck) has a jack hidden in a really inconvenient place under the front seat on the passenger side.
I know this, because after 18 months of owning my truck I finally got the first flat tire that couldn't be resuscitated by a large can of fix-a-flat.
It happened on July 4th 2012... I had driven to my dear friend's house to take a present to her on her 30-somethingeth wedding anniversary. I made it there, somehow, but when I left for home and hit the road, my car/truck began making those dreadful noises on the pavement. You know the kind: Brzzz-thump-a-thump-brzzz-thump!
Being too lazy to actually pull over and check it out, I lowered the electric side mirror and looked.
Yep. Flat. All the way dead.
Now, weather-wise, I've never known July 4th to be pleasant in any state of the Union (disclaimer: I've also never been to Alaska) but here in Missouri it is normally down right miserable and this year it is hotter than ever - over 105 degrees.
To be short in writing, I called my husband, who VALIANTLY came out to rescue me by changing the tire. I do this every once in a while. He seems to like being needed.
Unfortunately, he DOESN'T 't like the heat much better than I do and was getting rather frustrated by the ridiculous design that Dodge came up with in HIDING the jack securely under the front seat. First off, he had to search the owner's manual to even FIND the jack, then spent the next 20 minutes trying to extricate it from the place where it had welded into the frame of the car under the seat.
Seeing that his annoyance was growing to anger, I suggested that we just call AAA and have it changed by them. I figured they could take their little tow truck thingy, lift the back of my truck off the ground... and voila!
The hubs failed to see my strategy at this point, being that he had already (finally) freed the jack. However, when he went to actually use the jack, he discovered that it was broken.
"Okay, tell you what, I'm just gonna call AAA."
"No, I think I can make it work."
Seriously?!?
Meanwhile I'm BAKING in the car, he's BAKING outside the car and we are both wondering why we ever married each other!
I'm thinking: Why torture yourself? We pay $90/year so they can come change our tires for us.
He's thinking: Why doesn't she think I can do this? She called me out here, after all, to do this and I'M GOING TO DO THIS!
As the storm continues to brew in a cycle of failed attempts to get the jack to work, I finally call AAA and run back to hide in the air conditioning of my friends house.
AAA and my valiant hubs changed the tire and let me know when the drama was all over. Then he went the extra mile and, about a week and two nagging sessions later, actually got my tire replaces.
I thought I was doing pretty well to get only one non fixably flat tire in an entire year and a half, but this past weekend, my daughter and I went out to take pictures of our poor sizzling Midwest crops. To accomplish this, I pulled off the road (which are all single lanes in the country) and somehow got something in the tire.
Providence was merciful to me in waiting until I'd taken my girl to the airport and come clear back home before going flat but, alas, it finally did.
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