My plans go awry - again

Not sure where to begin this blog today. I was whacking my brains out on the computer with courses - doing it the hard way, of course, a.k.a. 'my way' - for days trying to get last Tuesday's assignment done. The car started Friday despite below-zero temps most of the week - Friday actually started warming up! I made a dash to Towne for cat food, dog food, coffee (we should all know which one is most critical there) and...

I did feel that faint nudge to check the air in my tires, but it wasn't at-the-time critical. Figured if it presented itself on Saturday, I'd check it then.

I was also recalling a previous trip when I went to the store to buy toilet paper (we were O-U-T) to save Sera a trip. I had meandered around the store, found a beautiful chocolate cake in the bakery department at a reduced price, so bought it and hob-nobbed with the clerk. I paused to read the bulletin board on my way out, getting gloves and keys ready to face the cold. Got home sans cake, and realized I'd totally spaced-out buying toilet paper. Called the store and they fetched the cake from the gumball machine I'd perched it on, then called Sera to get the cake and - buy toilet paper. More than likely, I'd been 'whacking my brains out on the computer' and hadn't fully reoriented to this world, and yes - a lost chocolate cake is deflating.

Probably not as deflated as the tire was yesterday. I planned a quick trip in-and-out out of Towne after 'whacking my brains out' for 4 or 5 hours in the morning, and the weather was astoundingly warm! Yee-ha! Once I hit pavement proper, there was a most-obvious problem with a tire. Not even the gentle whump-whump-whump of one getting seriously low, but the kaa-thunk... kaa-thunk of "not good." I figured I'd cripple it back the mile home, but I couldn't risk the rim and it was "not good."

I realized if the car was technically 'on the road', my triple-AAA just-paid-renewal would cover towing to the repair shop; if it were at home, they wouldn't. Logic, best to leave it on the road then. A nice gent gave me a lift the short distance home; I called to check hours for repairs and had time to get it in - and yes, I knew exactly where the two tires were under the snow that had been saved for such an occasion.

Plan A: Call triple-AAA, get the car towed to the shop, have Sera run me and the tires back up to my car before the truck showed up, proceed with errands and get back to assignments.

Optional Plan A: Called son Matt, see if his air compressor would be available if I chose to fill the tire and run madly for the shop. It was, but seemed like a lot of fuss to fetch it.

On-hold with AAA, Sera thought we should just get a can of fix-a-flat and be done with it.

Plan B: Sera drove me up to the station for the can of fix-it. I threw the two tires in my car, put the fuse back in that I have to pull regularly since it drains the battery if left in, gave Sera my secret numbers to transfer funds via computer to my debit card to cover the tire while Sera put in the can of fix-a-flat.

The tire chuckled - probably smashed loose off the rim, and wherever the can-stuff was going, it wasn't doing a pound of good.

Plan C: I did have the spare donut and a jack in the trunk. (I know, I could have just done this sooner, hmm?) I'd never had it out, but seemed a like a quick solution - and it looked pretty round, because no - I've never checked the air in it. They should just be made out of solid rubber anyway; odds are, they'll never really be filled if you need it, they're only good for a short distance, and why not? - that's my opinion.

So... I have the hydraulic jack out, and - it won't actually fit under my car with a totally flat tire. Most of the car is plastic or rust, and the last thing I wanted to do was pop the jack through something critical, like the oil pan. We messed about with this, no handy bricks or blocks around (I should just keep a few in the trunk, too) to double-step around the jacking-up process, trying to feel where something solid may be underneath. The jack-stands or block-stands or whatever they are wouldn't fit underneath, either... until I turned them on their side. They're pokey - again the risk of puncturing something - so -- the other straight piece that goes with them became a brace.

Success! We got the car jacked up, didn't rip off any fingers, got the donut on. Lowered the jack...and it wouldn't fit back out (we'd hoped the donut would be a little higher than the flat, but it wasn't high enough). Jack-up, replace braces, drop down, move jack, jack up, remove braces, drop jack, and realize the donut isn't exactly 'flat'. But it certainly wasn't 'round', either.

Sera commented it looked silly, but that was the least of my concerns. (They do though, don't they?)

"Good enough." Toss everything back in the car, now a bit muddy from the roadside repair, run hurriedly-slowly with a gentle 'whump whump whump' before it became a 'kaaa-chunk, kaaa-chunk' while Sera went home to transfer funds and meet back up with me at the tire shop.

This clerk knows me too? It was easier for him to come outside and see the situation: one totally flat tire on rim in the trunk, with can-stuff doing nothing in it; a half-flat donut without very tight lug-nuts on the car; two tires in the back seat that can be used of two different sizes (one was supposed to match). His job was to make it all good again, however that was best possible.

The right-sized tire's edges were a bit worn, so he hesitated to use it; the other was slightly larger but better, and the flat was one that went with the set of four that was once again three. He chose to put the front tires on the back and put the other two 'good' ones in the front after switching the rim on the flat for one of the spares.

Sera and I took off to do the errands I wanted done, including refilling a prescription to keep me semi-sane. We also went browsing at a used-shop, the winter's answer to garage-sale blues. Sera cut me loose back at my car, and, yeah - they're good guys. They charged me under $20. Of course I'd only switched checking to debit card in the amount I expected spend, and was mildly surprised when my card was declined at the gas station - meaning I couldn't pick up the prescription anyway, which ---- is why I'd gone to Towne in the first place.

On the bright side, it was a nicer day to be mucking about with a tire?

Four hours after leaving the house on an hour's run... I returned. Classes were still waiting, I'd ate cake for breakfast (I consider this the booster-kick on the day, because 'cake for breakfast' falls along the line of 'eat dessert first' - whatever else happens, you know you had your cake) eight hours earlier - it had long passed on - survey cases were downloading for February, and Sera desperately needed her taxes done to catch up on things.

I went back to 'whacking my brains out' on the computer and got last week's assignment done, looked at what is 'supposed to be done' by this Tuesday, had Sera pulling out tax-forms around midnight, and... had a typical day around here? Except I haven't mentioned Matt's household having Whooping Cough loose, which is a bad omen if Val gets sick - she'll be miserably at home with me if she does. I don't personally have time to be sick, it just complicates my days.

Betwixt the classes and taxes, I went outside to romp with the dogs and unkink, which is when one dog mistook the cat in the snowbank for an intruder and leaped in after her. Loopy took off with a screech, but then later I heard this nerve-tingling, injured-cat cry when I tried to call her in: "meow -er" that says "I'm broke, can't move, I'm stuck" in cat language. It was about 10 p.m., so I did what I usually do - I yelled for Sera to find the cat. I'm not useful on blood-and-guts things. Of course this meant trying to find a flashlight to find the cat...

I think the cat was faking it, in snow up to her belly and acting like she couldn't move until fawned over a bit. Fine as soon as she heard a can opening.

Okay, so yes, this is the cat that ran up a scrabby pine tree as a kitten when it was freezing drizzle out, panicked and 'stuck there' for a few hours. It wasn't a tree I could climb easily (too skinny) and she was pretty high-up, so I resolved the matter by sawing the tree down. It toppled kind of slowly (if you weren't the cat in it) and landed on branches, and the cat came streaking out, and we really didn't need this tree, so it all worked out.

Anyway... what I've figured out is that tires can be 'frozen round'. Then when a warm day happens, they thaw out and go flat. In hindsight, I should have heeded that 'nudge' on Friday, and I hope you've learned something from this.