Taxi Driver

Late last night I received word that my son would not have his usual ride to school this morning.  I quickly figured out that I’d need to take him to school a little earlier than strictly necessary so I could get home and pick up another son to get him to work on time.

That plan would have been perfect except that someone (not me!) was running late and gummed up the works.  This made the second son three minutes late.

Then I worked for several hours longer than I intended.  I promised my daughter we’d go to lunch and by the time we got out of the house we had less than an hour to eat.  That would not have been a problem except that when we came back to the car after eating, I saw that the passenger side rear tire of my car was flat.

Not flat-flat, but saggy-flat.  Flat enough that I knew I should not drive around with that flattish tire.

In our family, my husband handles the car-related stuff.  Not that he knows anything about cars, but he takes the cars to people who do and that’s his gender-assigned role.  I’ve never once even been into a tire store that I recall.  I got married so I would not have to go into tire stores or talk to life insurance sales men or kill spiders.  (Plus one or two other reasons.)

My husband, though, is in Texas.  He happened to call just after I discovered the tire.  I explained what was happening and asked him where he usually takes our cars to get the tires fixed.  (Discount Tires, as it turns out.)

In the meantime, however, I drove slowly across the parking lot to the Sears in the mall.  I parked by the open garage and asked the nearest uniformed guy if he’d put some air in the tire.  He did–and he pointed out the nail snugly embedded in my tire.

Then I hurried to pick up my son from school.

I dropped off son and daughter at home so I could go to Discount Tires.  Once there, I waited for almost an hour for my tire to be repaired–at no charge, it should be noted.  The store was so clean and tidy and the employees were awesome.  Weirdly, this was the second time this particular tire has needed a repair.

When I got back into the car, I saw that the indicator light–the one that had been glowing ever since my husband left, the one that told me a tire was not fully inflated, the one that I ignored because I am that kind of person, the kind of person who ignores warning lights–that light was no longer on.

So I filled up my gas tank with more gasoline ($3.67 a gallon which almost seems like a bargain considering recent prices) and now I’m ready to resume shuttling kids around.  (Daughter to class, son to class, son to work, son home from school, daughter to soccer.)

Too bad I don’t charge my passengers by the mile.