Mother Lovin' Truck

Before I start, I want you all to know that I love my truck. I really do, but sometimes I just wanna send it to the junkpile.

Now, I really have no right to feel that way because everything that has happened except one thing was all my fault, but it was frustrating as hell, and I know someone out there wants a good story, so here goes...

I'm driving home from work on Wednesday night, and I pull into my subdivision, and I start hearing a "pssshhhht! pssshhhht!" sound. I didn't really think anything of it, so I go into the house and go to bed.

I get ready early Thursday morning to go run some errands, and I go outside and lo and behold, my truck tire is flat....very flat.

I call the Love of My Life and she makes arrangements to take me to and pick me up from work. She is definitely a lifesaver, and I don't know what I would ever do without her.

So we do that, and Friday and Saturday I do nothing but let the truck sit. Then Sunday comes along.

We decide the best course of action is for me to remove the tire, then we can take it to get it patched up. Well, things happened to make us run later than usual, so it's almost 8 PM by the time I start, so we figure that I'll use the spare, then patch up the bad tire on Monday. Boy were we wrong!

One thing to keep in mind is that all, and I do mean all of my tools are locked in storage right now, and I can't get to them because I owe them money, so my stuff is in lockdown!

I end up borrowing a jack and a tire iron from my parents, and I get back and get the tire loosened up with no problems. Then I go for the spare.

The spare on my truck is located in the back, underneath the truck, and has a special tool for the line that holds it up to the truck. Naturally, I don't have that either. So I try to be creative.

I look for anything to try to stick in the tire iron to make it big enough to be able to turn the crank to let the tire down, but nothing works. Finally, around 9PM I decide I'm going to have to get a tool of some sort. I decide to walk to Autozone, which is quite a distance from the house I'm in now.

I poke my head into the door to let my roommate know I'm going, and then I start my walk. I arrive at Autozone at about 9:50, and my legs hurt, and I have rocks in my shoes as well.....and they are closed!

Not only that, but the Love of My Life had gotten wind of this most recent of dumb exploits, and she had me on the phone, wondering aloud why I was walking here in an unsafe part of town this late at night, and probably thinking about how dumb I am for doing it.

She ends up picking me up at a gas station and we go to Wal-Mart. At Wal-Mart I pick up my newest friend...a pair of vise grip channel locks. She then drops me off back at home and goes to tend to her children.

I start working on the truck again, and sure enough, I am finally able to get the spare dislodged from the truck. I jack the truck up as high as I can get it only to find out the jack doesn't go high enough.

A few months earlier, I had some tire issues, and we changed the tire size on the front tires to a smaller size. I know you can guess that the spare wasn't the same size as the damaged tire.

After about 20 minutes of some profane language, I come up with another plan. Walk up to the gas station and pick up a can or two of Fix-a-Flat.

It's now 1:00 AM and I'm walking and suddenly the picture of the tire comes clearly into my head. I have to turn back before I make this trip for nothing. I was about halfway to the gas station, and I just turn, and start walking back toward home. I get there and get the flashlight and look to see if what I thought I saw on the tire was true. It was...there was no way in hell this tire was gonna be fixed by anything but a new tire, because it had a huge gash in the side.

Finally I resign and go to bed after a cool shower, and decide to tackle the tire again tomorrow.

Monday comes and the Love of My life picks me up after work again
, and we go to try to get a used tire. I load the tire up into her van, and we go to 2 places who not only have no tires in my size used, but they want almost $90 for one new one.

We go to a place by my parents house and they find a used one, which we promptly rush back to the truck for replacement.

After having to reposition the jack twice, and bending my running boards, I get the truck high enough to actually put the tire on.

I get the tire on and tighten the lugs as much as I can while it's in the air. The I try to let it down slowly, but the jack has other ideas. It comes down fast and hard, and slams the running board into my shoulder in the process. After sitting and making sure that I was ok and didn't have any broken bones, I proceeded to tighten the lugs the rest of the way, and then test the truck out to make sure the tire is ok.

Finally, after all this time, it was back to a drivable state. I have a very sore body, and a bit of a bruised ego to match, but overall I'm ok.

The last thing I did was to stomp the crap out of the bent running board in order to be able to get my driver side door open, then I went inside and showered and started getting ready for the big move.

And that, ladies and gents, is the debacle of the flat tire. I hope you enjoyed the story much more than I enjoyed playing the lead role in this little dramatization :)