Miasmatic Review

Tires.

I was running around on lunch today picking up supplies, aka beer, for the Beer Tasting I’m hosting this weekend. The shopping was taking long and Ktreva had a conference call so I volunteered to drop her off while I went and picked up lunch for us. I was just running to the Subway a couple of blocks from work. As I turned onto the side street to access the parking lot, I hear a slight grinding noise coming from the vehicle. At first I thought it was the brakes, but I noticed it kept going even after the brakes were released.

When I pulled into the stall I got out of the vehicle and walked to the passenger side. There I heard a sound that made me utter a curse under my breath. It was the slow HSSSSSSSssssssssssssssssssssssssss of air leaving a confined space. Just looking at Ktreva’s van I could tell which tire it was. Her passenger front tire was slowly deflating.

Having been through this before, I started pulling out the jack and tools to get the spare tire out from underneath the van. As I twisted the crank to lower the spare tire, I noticed that the spare wasn’t lowering. The cable was coming down just fine; the spare was still under the body. It seems the metal clasp that holds the tire up rusted to a part under the van.

There I was in the parking lot of Subway swearing, climbing under the van with a pry bar and trying to break the tire free. After about 15 minutes it finally popped off. Everything went smoothly after that. The nuts came off easily, the jack worked perfectly, no one tried to run me over. I put the spare on and lowered the vehicle… and watched as the van went to the rim of the spare. It seems the spare was flat too.

Now folks, I would like to say that I was calm, cool and collected about this. But seriously I went on a cursing tirade that scared the living daylights out of people. A couple of employees that work at my company were coming out of the subway during my rant and heard me. They ran away pretty damn fast. A lot of people in the area were looking at me with an unsure look on their face. I figure they either thought I had Tourette’s or I was a “Special ed” adult throwing a temper tantrum.

Figuring I that I was stuck and had nothing else I could do, I ran into Subway, picked up lunch and headed to the nearest tire place, Discount Tires… on the rim of the spare. Hey, it’s cheaper to replace the spare!

I get to the tire place and they are PACKED! Packed I tell you! I asked how long it was going to be, and the guy told me it would be an hour to hour and a half. Fine, so I sat down, at my sandwich and then called a bunch of people to see if they were still coming this weekend. After about an hour they came and got me. The guy said there was no damage to the tire and he could fix it easily enough. They even fixed the spare.

When I asked how much, cringing waiting to hear him say some outlandish amount, he responded with, “Nothing, it’s free.” Excuse me? Did you say Free? You mean there is no charge? Why is there no charge? “I don’t know, the work order says “free repair”. I even verified with the first guy I spoke with. He said there is no charge.

Huh… no charge. You don’t get that very often anymore do you? That was about the only bright spot on the incident is that other than a loss of my time, it didn’t cost me a thing. The next time I need tires, I’m probably going to go back to this place and check them out. Thank you Discount Tires on Perryville in Rockford, Illinois.