The night the tire won

My wife and I were on our way to dinner, celebrating our two-year anniversary. She was dressed to kill; my shoes matched my belt: all was set for a romantic evening. As I rounded the corner a block away from the restaurant, I turned my head to look at one of the stupid things I like to look at.

I turned my head back towards the road just in time to see the curb I was going to strike. A few days prior, my obsession to have one of the most fuel-efficient cars on the road led me to the gas station where I topped off all my tires at exactly 1 more psi than the manufacture recommends. Thus the air was frantically looking for a way out, and the hard edge of the curb provided an escape.

Upon my collision, my wife started to chuckle and immediately saw the moment as an opportunity to fire back for all the times I had criticized her driving. "Yeah, you'll really laugh when we have a flat tire," I said sarcastically. Just then we heard a rushing wind.

I pulled off the road quickly and parked the rig. As I stepped out, I realized I'd never before needed to fix a flat! I tried to mask my ignorance by walking around the car and grumbling about the wrench I thought I'd need.

I opened the cover at the bottom of the trunk and was delighted to find a spare. Even so, my disguise of competence withered quickly as my wife had to find the jack for me. But I recovered by using the term "undercarriage" as the we situated the jack.

Things went smoothly from there as the car was raised and the nuts were removed from the wheel. Then, just as I pulled the damaged tire from the bolts, the jack tipped over and the car leaped forward like Michael Phelps at the start of the Men's 100-meter butterfly race. My wife said "uh oh," I said "a bad word," and the bare rotor landed on the pavement. My dang car looked like a three-legged beached whale.

I guess you're supposed to set the parking brake when you change a tire.

The car was so low to the ground that the jack wouldn't fit under it any more. I needed to lift it a good inch. It would take a miracle, even an anniversary miracle. I heaved and hawed, and up went the sagging quarter of the car. My wife quickly slid the jack back into place, and I tried to put my back back into place.

On pins and needles we again got the car jacked up, the spare on, and then let the jack down. The spare was flat.

We jacked 'er up again, took the spare off, and tried to figure out where the nearest psi supplier was. I hoisted the spare into my arms and we walked about 6 blocks to a closed service station. Not interested in wandering around with the heavy spare any farther, I walked up to the front door and peered inside.

Luckily, there was some guy still in the dark place who either was a manager working late or a robber thumbing through the cash register. Based on his reaction upon seeing us, I suspected the latter, but he still opened the door and filled up our spare tire.

We trekked back to the car and put the newly-filled spare back on. We then went to dinner where I ordered my chicken curry to be made "spicy" instead of "medium" in an attempt to convince my wife I still had a measure of manhood. It took several return trips from the waitress to refill my water, but I think it worked.

Upon leaving the restaurant, I noticed the spare was looking low again. We held our breath as we raced home; I asked her to throw her jewelry out the window in order to free up some weight, but she wasn't interested in helping the situation.

Nonetheless, we made it back home where I could put the car down for the night. If the whole fiasco had happened when we were dating I probably wouldn't have been celebrating a two-year anniversary with her that night. And my shoes probably wouldn't have matched my belt.