From the Heights of Machu Picchu

Hick gifted me with two big, bouncing, beautiful new tires for T-Hoe yesterday. Okay, so he didn't wrap them, they weren't a surprise, and I have to pay for them. It's the thought that counts.

I skipped out the door, unencumbered, off to town for a 44 oz. Diet Coke and a few groceries. Backroads was my oyster. As I backed out of the garage, something felt different. Almost as if I was encroaching on the steering wheel. Hm. Maybe I need to cut back on the gas station chicken. That thought flitted across my mind, but since I have not had any gas station chicken for over two weeks, I shoved that flittery thought to the very back of my gray matter, near the rear emergency exit.

Still. Something was different. I jounced up the driveway. Must be that Service Suspension System message that keeps popping up on T-Hoe's control center. Hick said he had it checked when he got the tires, and my air shocks are deflated. Along with my spirit when it comes to him and kitchen-counter onion disposal. Hick said we'll get the shocks over Thanksgiving break. That it's no big deal unless I plan to tow a heavy load. Looks like the stockpile of handbaskets for my proposed factory will just have to pile up in one place for a while.

I could not shake the feeling that I was listing forward. Like a toddler in his stepmother's stiletto heels. Like a puppy having his nose pressed down towards the carpet to acknowledge his indoor accident. Like a Soap Box Derby car at the starting line.

My princess butt detected something amiss. And it was not a pea. I felt like I was driving a monster truck. Over a line of cars that were being crushed under my giant tires. All I needed was a name. Not Bigfoot, Grave Digger, or Undertaker. Those were, as Elaine might say of her saved movie theater seats, TAKEN! But I could be Bigbutt. Or Nose Digger. Or Underwear Picker. I was happily planning my next career when I arrived on the outskirts of town.

As I clambered down from T-Hoe's command center, I glanced at my new tires. Surely not. The rear tires looked...how you say...um...I don't know...perhaps...HUMONGOUS compared to the front tires. I lit up the invisible communication lines right away, firing off a text to Hick at the bowling alley a half mile away. "I think you got the wrong size tires!" He had mentioned, after all, that the shop didn't have the exact same tire as T-Hoe sported on the front from last year. But that he had purchased the same tire in a different brand. Hick, in a few short words, instructed me the equivalent of not allowing my granny panties to bunch up or give birth to a bovine, for he would investigate the incongruency when he arrived home.

Going up the driveway, just before I pushed the garage door opener to try and break its distance record, I checked the fancy gewgaw on T-Hoe's dashboard that tells how many pounds of pressure are in each tire. Front tires: 32 PSI. Rear tires: 42 PSI.

My membership card for Mystery, Inc. remains unrevoked.