4.24.2007

We're here!



What should have been a five and a half hour drive turned into a nine hour ordeal. While driving the whole vehicle started to shake. I was talking on the phone to Paul at the time, and he told me to get over to the side right away. I'm sure I would have eventually figured that out on my own, but it was nice to have Paul on the other end of the phone. So I pull over and get out to look, and sure enough one of the tires is flat as anything.
As annoying as that was, I was secretly excited to be able to use the roadside assistance that we pay $2 a month to belong to. I called up our roadside assistance and the dude shows up thirty minutes later. He was a very nice young man, but he was an absolute idiot. It took him just over an hour to put the spare tire on the car.
Once the spare was on he told me I should buy a new tire as soon as possible. Why on earth do they make spare tires so stinkin' small?? I spent too much time trying to find someone who sold tires - exit 181 off of I-24 does not have a single tire store, just in case you ever need a tire. Go to exit 174.
I get to a Walmart and the ultimate in hick dudes comes out to change the tire for me. I love the south, but man, they've got some funny people! So, he changes the tire, and when he is done he wants to know if I want to purchase a warranty on the one tire I just bought. Get this: I pay $9.00 for a warranty, which means they will repair or replace the tire up to 25% of the tires life, beyond 25% they will pro-rate the life of the tire. Makes sense. BUT in order to get that I need to pay $7.50 to purchase the Balance and Rotation, which is good for the life of the tire. So I asked the dude "What is the point in paying for the rotation of one tire?" All I wanted was to have my one tire covered in case another nail found its way into the tire, but you couldn't purchase that plan without having purchased the other package. And it makes sense if they made me pay for all four tires to be covered for rotation and balance, but it didn't make sense for only one tire to be covered.
Apparently no one has thought up that question before, as my hick town car mechanic went and got his genius co-workers and they spent a good deal of time trying to figure that one out. In the end I told them not to worry about it ... brain cells seemed scarce enough around there, I didn't want to be the cause of them losing any more!
So that was the grand tire adventure. It took three and a half hours to get that done.

Judah was so good the whole time - he was born for road trips! He fussed only when he was hungry or when we were going through mountains, and I can only presume then that his ears were popping. Poor baby.

We are now with Chrissie, which was the point of this whole trip!! She is working right now, but I am going to meet up with her for lunch, so I should get going and dress Judah!

2 comments:

Elena said...

Which exit is 181? From where were you coming, and where were you heading? (I live in Nashville, so I'm trying to figure out where y'all were in relation to me.)

Yeah, Walmart adventures in the South can be.... interesting, to say the least.

~Elena1030 from Crosswalk~

Crystal said...

LOL!! From the secret excitement to the hick walmart dudes, this story was so funny.

Sorry to laugh so hard at your plight. ;o) If it were ME I surely would have freaked out!

If you have room in your trunk, you can get a full sized tire to use as your spare. We did that for one of our cars. :o)

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