I’m Re-tired

Let me say straight out…this post has nothing to do with my employment status. I’ve said enough about that in previous posts. No…this is the story of how I spent a whole lot of money yesterday in a not-so-very exciting way.

My day began as always, trying to decide where to go shopping…yes, another day of looking for “stuff.” I decided to head north to the area, where I used to work, which has lots of interesting stores. I got in my car, got on the freeway and started my journey. My travels were going along uneventfully until I exited the freeway and turned onto the street. Only a few blocks later, I began to hear a thumping sound…Oh, Oh. I looked to my right and saw a big truck and was seriously hoping the noise was coming from that. I pulled into the left turn lane and waited for the red light to change. Once it did, I started to turn and realized the sound was, in fact, coming from my car. Rats! Thank goodness a gas station was right there so I pulled in and parked in front of the station’s mini-mart.

Getting out of my car, I was almost certain I knew what the problem was and, sure enough, I was right. My right front tire was as flat as a pancake…damn! What to do? Thank heavens for cell phones. I called the Auto Club, made arrangements for someone to come out and put on my little dingy spare tire and then waited for their truck to appear. It came quite quickly; the very nice man replaced the flat tire with my spare; and I was on my way.

Thankfully, one of the Big Box Warehouse outlets, where we buy our tires, was only a few blocks away. I drove over there, bought 4 new tires, and paid a whole lot of money. Remarkably, they were able to take my car right away and, within a half hour, my car was ready and I was, once again, on my way. Whew!

All in all, I was one pretty lucky lady. The tire didn’t blowout on the freeway where I could have been seriously injured; there was a convenient place to pull into from the street; the Auto Club truck came within 20 minutes; the Big Box Warehouse was only a few blocks away; they had my tires in stock; they were able to do the work right away. These are all good things. The only sad fact is that the Big Box Warehouse sent out their seasonal coupon books a few weeks ago and there was a $60 off coupon for the tires I bought. The catch…the coupon doesn’t take effect until Monday. Oh well…”it’s only money” as my dad would say.