My First Blow-Out

We had a fun adventure today. We had some errands to run, and the fastest way to get where we were going was to get on the Thruway for one exit. It was pretty windy (and cold) so I was fighting a little to keep the car steady. All of a sudden, I heard this big woosh and felt the car pull hard to the right. Apparently, you can really tell in a four wheel drive car when you suddenly get a flat tire! (I actually drove on a flat tire on the expressway for about 20 miles once in my old car, because it didn’t handle any differently at all and I had absolutely no idea I had a flat.)

I was sooooooo glad Denis was in the car, because even though I know how to change a tire, I couldn’t possibly have loosened those lug nuts myself. And did I mention it was cold? It would have been so much fun sitting on the Thruway waiting for a tow truck to come along and change a tire for me if I’d been with Carrie by myself. I didn’t even have my knitting! (Or gloves for that matter, but really, the knitting is way more important.)

Luckily, it was a clean puncture and I got us off the road really fast, so it was only $20 to have the tire fixed at Sears. Because if I understand correctly, four wheel drive vehicles have to have similar wear on all four tires, so with the 22,000+ miles I have on the car I would have had to replace all four of them.

Carrie kept asking me through the open tailgate, “Mommy, you ‘k?” as I was man-handling (woman-handling?) the spare out of the trunk and putting the flat tire back in. I was pretty surprised how not freaked out she was by the whole thing. Her biggest concern was that we were stopped, and she was still in her carseat, in her coat, and really, why on earth was she still in her carseat, in her coat no less, when the car wasn’t moving?!?