now i really need tires

[fflo]

so i got a flat last night. at first, when i recognized that something was seriously wrong with my automotive forward progress, i thought it might involve the transmission, cuz the car was struggling at low speed to get up a little hill. but it was a dead tire. i've really been pushing my luck with the tires, so it's no big surprise. and much better than a transmission thing.

i enjoyed talking to the AAA chick (Heather) (though she was no James, the guy from last time), and to shmizla while i waited. and then who should pull up alongside me but bigfinedaddy, who'd called on her way home from working late, and had casually asked where i was pulled over so she could pay a surprise visit to the site.

it was a lovely night out there.

i was put in mind of my flat on the (Chesapeake) Bay Bridge years ago, driving back to campus from the Annapolis Record Exchange in my '75 Nova ("Butch") with a carfull of fellow record-craving youngsters. we managed to pull off the main span to where there was some shoulder; a state trooper came along before we'd even started to change it, chastising me for letting my tires get so worn (and until this vehicle i'd been good about tires ever since).

and then, as each of the variously-inconvenienced responded to the pending delay in getting back to C-town, i had a little epiphany about behavior and personality, and about how we can make bad things worse for ourselves, and about some (handy examples of) ways i didn't want to do that, when & if i could manage not to. since then a shorthand for that set of thoughts for me has been, in my head, "the flat tire phenomenon."

oh, it's not that easy, by a long shot, is it. alas. it is easier than we make it sometimes. but it ain't easy.

and today pretty much sucked.

Comments

[shmizla.livejournal.com]

boo for today! why did it suck?

pleasurability talking to you too!

i'm trying to remember if i've had a "flat tire epiphany" moment or an equivalent, and i think the balkan 1990s were it. apparently, the 99 bombing, which i missed, was even more clarifying, with people going seriously nuts over a few days, panicking wildly, imagining spies everywhere, inventing scenarios for impending cataclysms, or simply cracking beyond repair.

[fflo.livejournal.com]

just a less good office day

office day today good, though

circuit breaker broken, and funny

better spirits all around, seems to me

i must say, i think i'd cut people a bit more slack on their freaking out if the inconvenience in question were being bombed... :( should count myself lucky that flat tires are even events of note, ya know?

[shmizla.livejournal.com]

that's true too, although when other people who were also there tell you that you could totally sit down and chill after a few days (after you got into the pattern), then it does start to look like more of a "character" thing somehow.

i know my friends went on daily bike rides and had more bbq's than ever (also daily). my father arranged all of our photographs into albums.

[sprig5.livejournal.com]

i got a flat several months ago. i was driving north on Rhode Island Avenue, DC, oldish tires, and, like in a Roadrunner cartoon or something, I suddenly saw that the lane I was in was full of what looked like giant point-up thumbtacks. I was taking on the phone to my friend D as I rolled over them and said, "I just drive over a whole bunch of what look like huge thumbtacks," and then, "Oh, I think I have a flat tire; I'm pulling into this bank."

Actually, I've had quite a few flats, because I've had quite a few cars with old tires (and at one point a few years ago, I would replace bad tired with used tires).

Was that scary, getting a flat on the Chesapeake Bay Bridge? Or was it not so scary because you weren't right in the middle? Would be interested in hearing the whole personalities story that resulted.

Ah, record runs! They used to be so much fun. And now we sit in front of the computer. Actually, there are some cool stores still about. I'm not as familiar with the ones in DC though these days.

[fflo.livejournal.com]

It wasn't so scary. Didn't know what it was at first. Then it was a minor pain, changing it.

Just remembered a personalities-revelation moment with vjsmom's partner and a flat tire.

The Annapolis Record Exchange has a sister shop in Bowie. Those were the places, girl. Lps in bad shape, $1. Good shape, $3. IMPORTS in EXCELLENT shape, $5-$8, usually. Plus bootlegs.

That was before I swore off bootlegs, after seeing Diva.

[fflo.livejournal.com]

i meant they HAD a sister shop...

[sprig5.livejournal.com]

but you never bought a sister.

[sprig5.livejournal.com]

i have one you can have.
ARR-ar-arr!