2 Flat Tires.

When I'm at what I think is the end of my rope, it seems I am always given just a little more to cope with. Yesterday I had one of those phone conversations that just send me over the edge. A co-worker at the ops center who thinks he's some kind of king-maker trying to arrange with me my transfer to that facility. Mind you I don't work for him, no one has said I will work for him and they just told me to order more furniture for my office here.

My ability to counter these calls has been shakey in the past. The more they happen, however, the more I refuse to participate in the conversational farce. In fact this one ran the gammut from nice conversation to me screaming at him. He was telling me that he was trying to help me by giving me the option which would be best for me. I countered that 1) no one had mentioned my any options except his and oh by the way what in the hell makes him think he knows what's best for me. Some where in there I gave him hell about if people are changing our job descriptions then maybe they should tell us so we can decide if it's ok or we should look elsewhere. Needless to say my blood pressure was definitely spiking.

So I rang off (thank God for cell phones that go out of range!) and put on my work out clothes. I announce that I was leaving because I needed to work out my anger and off I went. Got in the car backed out and stopped. Mostly because it was pretty darn obvious there was a problem. So I jacked up the car, removed the flat and put on my spare tire, whee! Then headed home. I had a fairly incoherent conversation with my spouse punctuated with many this doesn't feel/sound right comments. It wasn't.

One exit above the homestead it became obvious there was a problem. I pulled over, slipped out of the car and looked. Sure enough the spare was flat. The shoulder of Interstate 95 is not a friendly place so I made the decision to drive on the flat for a mile to the rest area. There I called my spouse.

Too late to make a long story short. The boys came. We took the tire to a tire place and got it fixed while they ate McD's. They dropped me back at my car and I removed the flat spare and put back the fixed tire. As is normal in my homelife I got minimal help (the ride) and zero sympathy.

So dear Blackbear (welcome home!), Today I learned that it's a given you will trash a tire by driving on it flat. They don't fix mini-spares and even if they did see above. They also don't stock the darn things, they have to order them. No word yet on mine as it's a "special order" item.