CARRYING AROUND A SPARE TIRE so to speak.

Anyone care to fess up?
I'm just sayin', did one of you tape a "kick me" note to my back? Because really, I'm thinking there's something to it. How else can I explain the chain of events I sacheted through yesterday? So here's how it all went down (hill), the comedy of errors that embodied my day.

First order of business was to drop off a basket of goodies at the post office, a thank you for the tour our homeschool group received recently (and you'll recall I tried to drop it off last week but our tour guide was on vacation.)
Once this was done, we had plans to collect fallen stones for our perennial garden path.

So what was I wearing?
Bumpkin wear.

Honestly, I looked like the poster child for a Jeff Foxworthy act. All the way down to my nerdy practical navy pointy tennis shoes (Just stop). It seems that in suiting up for boulder collecting, I completely forgot I would look all "backwoods" in the post office. So I did what any dignified woman would do. I sent Carl in. After all, he was the vision of pure class in his Cincinnati Reds faded t-shirt and baseball cap worn backwards. We cleaned him up good though. We flipped the hat around before he went in.

Next stop, the resale shop for a high chair. We have a really great shop close by, priced waaaay better than Once Upon A Child and with really nice "stuff" too. Though I'm thinking their high chairs must be reaaaaally nice because they didn't have any. Charming. Sigh.

Moving on to the neat flea market we've been wanting to check out. Should be fun. Um, when it's open, that is. (Wat-wah! How many strikes is that so far? How many am I allowed to have?).

Alrighty then. We drove an hour west to collect fallen stones along the road. The kids were hungry so we decided to stop for sandwiches first. Carl made a wrong turn and,....oh, it just got worse.
Much worse from that point on.

I began.
"Turn around right here."
"I'm just gonna u-turn over here."
"We're gonna end up with a flat tire on that nasty old stone."
"Aaaah!", with a short "a" (which, in the original Carl, means, "Leave the driving to me, honey.")

So we shimmy into the sandwich shop and Carl goes back to the van for something. I wasn't ready for his words when he returned.
They went something like this;
"Okay then, we now have a flat tire on the van."
"I'm not going to say it (Toni bites tongue 'till it bleeds) because you already know and I'm just not going to say it. But you might want to get out there and at least get started changing the tire while we're waiting for our food."

And thus began the TWO HOUR saga that felt more like two days. Fifteen minutes passed and Carl came in all grease monkey-like.
"It won't come off. I can't get the spare tire off."

We have never needed the spare in the near five years we've owned the van. And now it was found to be hermetically sealed to the van's underside. I was having none of it.
I confidently stated, "I'll try."

Now you might think that Carl laughed when I said that. See, but he knows me. He knows this is the woman who, in his job related absence, was forced to talk fix-it with the local Tractor Supply Company. The woman who, without "skills" or know how, correctly self diagnosed her lawn tractor's failed steering and spent a good 2 hours removing the corroded tie rod end and another half day replacing it promptly corrected it (thank you very much).


I proceeded to beat, kick, twist, pull and basically abuse the spare tire in a variety of time honored ways, only to discover that yep, Carl's right. She's stuck reaaaal good.

So Carl tried again. And then a lady pulled in right next to our obviously tireless van.
On the same side as our flat tire.
And parks there.
Even though there are only three cars in the lot.
Swell. Just swell.

I went back inside the sandwich joint with the kids. Figured I'd make myself useful and just hold my baby. He liked that.
Then he threw up in my lap.
And it was 82º.
And suddenly I'm all "Eau De Throw Up."
Naturally.

And Carl comes in, greasier than before. His Reds shirt was now more of a blotchy Red(s). Grease blotches'll do that.
"It won't come off." Clearly, he's on the heat stroke track, as we've already established the stuckness of our tire.
"Yeah? Um,....(What's plan B? What's plan Bbbbbbbbb for cryin' out loud?)
"Hey, I know. Don't we have some kind of roadside assistance with our car insurance?" (Toni, you genius.)
"Why yes, we do. I'll call them." Never mind that we're a good 40 minutes into this ordeal before it occurs to one of us that yes, we have the flippin' roadside assistance.

Carl steps back outside to make the call. The kids are now, um, bored. But it's 82º and sunny outside and Reece is about as "tan" as Bernadette Peters (whom I've met, btw) so the kids aren't venturing outside just yet.

Carl walks toward me flashing a "V" sign.
I'm thinking, "Sweet Victory. YES!"
No.
He's actually flashing me a "2", as in two fingers up, as in two hour wait. Ugh! Big flippin' ugh! And there's more.
"We're into an extended calling area so we're incurring roaming charges for all these calls." Just ugh!

Oh, it's on. Toni's comin' up with a better plan if it kills her.
"Call a local dealership and ask to speak to a mechanic. Maybe he'll have a tip as to how we can get that stinkin' cable to drop down so we can access the spare tire."
MECHANIC'S PROFESSIONAL TIP (and I quote):
"If you have anything available, you can cut the cable. Otherwise, we'll torch it if you bring the van in."

Yeah, suuuuuuuuure! I just happen to have an industrial strength pair of toenail clippers in my purse. Will that do? As if. And excuse me, but bring it in? Really? 'Cuz I'm thinkin' it's not a good idea to drive very far on just a rim. But then that's me, ever the analyst. Mechanic does tell Carl these cables lock up all the time (well, now that's special.)
And that it runs about $125 to replace them if you have to cut the tire free. He was just full up with good news for us.

So, now we're a solid hour into the ordeal, waiting for the towing guy.
Carl muses, "I wonder if there's a tire place close by."
Honestly, what are the chances?
Carl heads up to the restaurant counter. Shakes head.
"There's a tire place just over there."
As in a block away.
And it's been there the whole time (if only we asked).
Carl walks away with the tire. On his head. My idea. He says it gave him a headache.

And, par for the course, towing guy shows up 5 minutes later. I explain where Carl went and he offers to give him a ride back with the tire. Off he goes to get him.

A minute later, AND I KID YOU NOT, another little truck shows up. I read the side of it (while laying under my van again, trying to abuse coax the spare down). And do you know what I read?

ON SITE RV MEDIC.

Uh huuuh, did too. And the guy offers to help and has cutters the size of Edward Scissorhands. Definitely bigger than industrial toenail clippers. And I literally laugh out loud at the irony. And he thinks I'm showing early signs of heat stroke. And he doesn't know I'm waaaay past that by now. And my kids are crafting up clover necklaces and wanting me to wear them. And the baby's napping in his carseat with blankets over him to protect him from the sun. And the whole scene frankly is making me loopy.

Then Carl returns with towing guy, who puts the plugged tire back on for us. We thank him and send him on his merry way, but not before he offers this;
"The faulty cables are a real problem. I deal with it all the time in my business."
You don't say.

Well, he needed to take a number because we'd already heard it from the dealership mechanic and the tire place.
And now Tow-Mater has made it official.
Cable mounted spare tires don't always function properly.

I insist that if you have such a spare on your vehicle, that you promptly check the operation of the cable so you don't find yourself in my story. Seriously, do check this out. And if it works, check it every 90 days or so.

See, the thing is, I'm not a hundred percent for sure but....I'm really thinking there's a pattern to the responses we received. Like maybe it's a real problem for these cables to rust and/or malfunction somehow? I'm just sayin'.

Epilogue: And I'll have you know this is still not the complete story. I left out the part where the elderly man offers a small pair of needle nosted pliers to Carl to "cut" the cable. The cable that's at least as thick as a straw. Oh, and the part where Carl cancelled the service call because he was hoofin' it to the tire place, but the call didn't catch up with the towing guy in time. After the whole ordeal was over, we had 15 calls from tow-mater and another 15 from Progressive insurance, over whether or not they were going to pay Tow-mater for his services.
Keep in mind that all those calls are coming in via "extended calling area." NICE!

Toni