Yesterday was absolute shit. One of the wheel-swallowing potholes, to be readily found around Chicgao at this time of year, went ahead and swallowed my wheel. Instant pinchflat of the non-repairable variety. It was 5:30 a.m. so it was still completely dark outside and pissing down 36 degree rain, so i limped the car to the nearest underpass to try and get out of the rain. Once there, I immediately saw that I'd be trying to change a tire in a basically flooded underpass with three inches of muddy ice water to kneel in. Once in place, the jack was half submerged, which meant that every time I turned the crank, my hands were underwater. On the plus side, the water soon began to feel warm to me, which was good and bad, because it actually hadn't changed temperature. Luckily, I didn't drop any of the lug nuts in the water and the pathetic temporary-use spare had the gas to hold up the car. Small favors. Abandoning any hopes of making it into the office, I hobbled the car back home and took a very long shower of raw flame, trying to regain the sensation in my hands. As you may guess, the next six hours of my day were spent sitting in the Customer Holding Pen of the tire place, three hundred dollars lighter, purchasing two new front tires (Because you always replace them in pairs. Everyone knows this.), one of which was covered by my "Chicago Pavement Chasm Insurance Optional Tire Policy That You're Stupid if you Don't Buy It" and NOT buying a new rim, because, by some stroke of luck, I hadn't destroyed the rim.
This morning, I re-attempted to drive on Chicago's highways, and so I was rewarded with a rock, kicked up by a semi, that shattered the quarter window on my driver's side. I promise I'm not making this up. Life is good.
Hey. Nice orange truck. It's funny how I find myself unable to think of anything funny to write just now. Please enjoy this truck on alpha. Or don't. See if I care.
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4 comments:
Customer holding pen is an apt description.
That orange truck rocks. Thank you. And another small favor: obviously you don't have a Subaru, they make you replace 4 tires at once!
Dude, so sorry. That sucks. Michigan has had the road gnomes out too, doing their spring mining.
Story: A while back, my DH and I lived in Tennessee. A salesgal came in to our office for a meeting and we were chit-chatting. She asked where I was from, I said Michigan, and the first words out of her mouth were, "Wow, y'alls roads are terrible." Tell me something I don't know, sister.
The local news has been warning people that pothole season is going to be worse than usual this year. Basically, I"m anticipating this: http://static.panoramio.com/photos/large/5397860.jpg
Oh yes. The potholes are worse in direct proportion to the horribleness of the cold. I keep a sharp eye on my tire inflation and I don't run those skinny, low-profile, rubber-band ghetto tires either. They''re normal-sized tires that came on the car. But, a hole the size of a microwave oven can take a chunk out of the most reasonably-sized tire. Whatever we get here in Chicago, you get it worse in Michigan. I feel your pain like Clinton.
My response to the southern salesgal: "But by the summer, our potholes will be filled and you'll still be walking around calling people 'y'alls'."
Thanks for reading, Everybody!
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