As the voice of Alan Kalter echoed in my head...

As most of you know, I drove to the fabulous state of ARRRRRRR-Kansas this last friday for a weekend with the family. The vacation itself was not very eventful; it was much more relaxing than anything else. The trip up, however, was a bit more...uh, exciting?

First of all, let me say that I love OKC rush hour traffic. I'm sure the city is a bit wimpy if you compare it to DC, LA, NYC, or some other acronym, but it's a pain nonetheless. Elizabeth and I sat in the traffic, never exceeding twenty MPH for about forty five minutes, traveling a grand total of 3 miles. At the end of these three miles, my heart first rose, then plummeted to the depths of some sort of traveler's oblivion. As we accelerated up to 60, I heard the telltale thumpity-thumpity-thumpity of my left-front tire being completely screwed.

Saving it was never really an option. First of all, I didn't have adequate shoulder room to pull over on the highway. I had to drive nearly a quarter mile on the flat to the nearest exit. I pulled off onto the four-lane frontage road, and by the time I made it into the right lane, the wheel was making horrible sounds, and little chunks of rubber were being flung up at the windshield. So, with my car half in the road and traffic hastily detouring around me, I clicked on the flashers and went out to survey the damage.

This tire was in the worst condition that I've ever seen on an actual tire. Did you ever know there was woven material that resembles shag carpet in tires? Yeah, neither did I. The closest comparison I can make is a bit outdated. Remember a few years back when the firestone tires on Ford Explorers were coming apart in traffic? (The Late Show with David Letterman is brought to you by Firestone's Exploding Tires! KABOOM!!!) Well, it looked kinda like those.

If you think sitting in rush hour traffic is fun, I would highly recommend changing a tire on a busy frontage road in the heat of the afternoon. Kids these days don't appreciate high quality fun like that. It's not as though we were helpless out there. Unfortunately, I've had to change tires in a pinch before, so I knew what to do. What made it interesting was the location of the car. There was about a foot of shoulder on the road. The rest of my car was just sitting out in the lane. With the tire on the left side, I had to sit in the road to do the work, and while I managed to confine myself to the space of the right lane, the cars were still closer than I would have liked them. I had Liz stand in the road behind the car to make us more visible. Thank God she was there. The exchange with a woman who stopped to see if we needed any help was somewhat disconcerting:

"Do you need some help?" she said.
"Thanks, we've got it." I replied.
"Oh, I didn't even see you there." she chuckled.

There were five different people that tried to stop and help, which were all either, as my sister put it, "creepy-looking guys", or middle-aged women in vans. Still, it was somewhat encouraging that so many people, in this day and age of "everybody and their dog's a rapist", that so many people should stop and offer to help. It's the kind of thing that makes me smile and be happier about the world we live in.

So, after I got the spare put on, I called my dad about a good place to get a new one, he suggested the Edmond Walmart, and so we were off, 5 miles or so down back roads, and we were there. We had to wait an hour there, but we got a new tire on, and it got us up to ARRRRR-Kansas, however delayed. Of course, it was slightly the wrong size, so we had to get it replaced while we were up there, and my alignment's most likely all out of whack, but I'll get that resolved soon enough. It takes a whole hell of a lot more than a flat tire to get me down, that's for damn sure.