I Look Down From My High Horse, and See a Donut as a Just Dessert

Coincidence or karma? 

 

Friday, I mentioned how The Pony and I had a text tiff which made me sad. And within five minutes, the time it took me to get from the driveway to the mailbox, a ladybug appeared inside T-Hoe. How I stopped for my weekly drive-thru graveside chat with my mom and dad, and on the two subsequent stops, found a penny and a dime.

Those quirky discoveries definitely lightened my spirits. The Pony was not so fortunate.

I can't presume to know what he was feeling, but our interaction seemed as if he was angry with me. Not sad. Casting blame on me for a conversation we had SIX YEARS AGO.

Anyhoo... about two hours later, everything had been smoothed over by text. No apologies from either of us, just my explanation, and his eventual dropping of the subject, and initiation of a new topic. I pulled T-Hoe into the garage, assuming from The Pony's last text that he would be home within the half hour.

Hick followed me down the driveway on the lawnmower, and walked in before I could lower the garage door. Heh, heh! I didn't mean for it to sound that way. Of course I don't try to close the garage door in Hick's face! I have more subtle ways to irritate him.

"Your son ran off the road and has a flat tire. I told him to call Triple A. That's why we have it. I'm not driving down there and crawling around under a car. It's 81 degrees. He was coming home the back way, and said a car coming at him was over the line. He got a tire off the edge, and it's flat. I told him to get a tow to Mick the Mechanic. I'm headed there to wait for him."

Let the record show that our county blacktop roads get resurfaced periodically. Which consists not of scraping off the old blacktop, but of adding a new layer on top. Which is not quite as wide as the previous layer. The road might be 6-8 inches of blacktop deep. It's quite a jolt if you get off the edge. There aren't any shoulders to pull over. Just a drop to a ditch. 

 

I slow way down when I'm on a narrow section and meet something like the Poop Truck (that tank truck that hauls sewage from the prison, to dump on a guy's land on the way to town) or a dump truck or Hick's buddy in his driveable camper that tows a trailer. The Pony was on a narrower road. Even in his smaller Nissan Rogue, he's not as experienced a driver.

Anyhoo... The Pony had texted Hick. Not me! He notified me after he'd called Triple A.

"They won't send a tow, but they're sending a guy in a truck to change the tire. His ETA is 12 minutes."

"Be careful driving [that horse was already out of the barn!] on the donut. You're not supposed to go very fast on them."

"I know. Dad says he doesn't know if we can find a tire this late on a Friday. I need to text my supervisor to tell her I can't use my car on my route tomorrow."

Here's the tire:

 

It was the right front tire. Got off the edge of the blacktop, and got a big gash. Probably from the built-up blacktop. but maybe from a big rock as he dropped down. He also bent the wheel. Mick the Mechanic thought he might be able to hammer it out. Here's a closer look:

 

No can of Fix-A-Flat is going to make THAT tire roll again! Dang it! There was still good tread left, too! The good news is that The Pony's donut spare was actually a full size compact tire. Not a tiny one like I had to put on my Toyota Corolla in the middle of nowhere between Steelville and Potosi when I had a blowout and had to change my own tire back in 1989. 

"Dad's buddy said that he might be able to find me a tire at a scrap shop."

"Scrap shop???"

"Or maybe he said scrap yard. He thought he had one, but it was just a little bit too small. He said that since I have all-wheel drive, it might mess that up. So he's going to call around and try to get the right one on Saturday morning."

He did. Hick went to pick it up. Cost $95. That's 5.27 hours of walking the post office beat for The Pony. Who will definitely be reimbursing us. His supervisor said she would send him out on the walking route if necessary, until she could get an LLV (Long Life Vehicle) running on Saturday morning. 

Luckily she had an LLV for The Pony. Who ended up working 11 hours yesterday. That three hours of overtime will probably pay off the tire debt. The Pony gets time-and-a-half over 8 hours, and I think it switches to double time after 10.

Anyhoo... I'm quite relieved that The Pony wasn't hurt, nor his Rogue damaged. Every day, on my brief drive to town, I usually encounter at least two distracted drivers coming into my lane. Some of them require the horn! Is it wrong of me to take pleasure in honking at drifters?