Lost Week

This past week was uneventful here. Nothing happened. Except, my partner Nuria had a birthday. And when we went out to eat a birthday dinner, we encountered the first obstacle. The restaurant where we wanted to dine was closed. Covid has killed a lot of businesses.

So we drove to another restaurant. We ate and as we were leaving, I realized the Jeep had a flat tire. This wasn't my first rodeo. I've had flat tires before. 

When you're driving slowly, the flat tire sounds like whup-whup-whup-whup as the bad tire rolls along the paved road. I normally stop and change to the spare. But this time there was no good place to pull off the road, and if I drove fast enough the whup-whup sound disappeared. Maybe the rotation of the tire produced enough centrifugal force on the sidewalls to lift the wheel's rim off the road. Maybe having four wheel drive helped.

Whatever, I was able to drive the Jeep to a friend's house about 8 miles away. Then we got into his car and drove to an auto parts store where I bought a can of Fix-a-Flat. It plugged the hole in the tire and partially inflated it, lifting the rim maybe an inch or two off the ground. Then I drove the semi-fixed Jeep to a nearby auto repair shop (which was closed) where I parked it and left. I called the owner and told him about the Jeep. He advised me that after using Fix-a-Flat the tire would have to be replaced.

The next morning I walked to the auto shop, getting there just before they opened. I told the owner what I wanted him to do (remove the tire from the rim, clean out the Fix-a-Flat, repair the hole, mount the tire on the rim, and put the wheel back on the Jeep). I told him not to replace the tire unless I give him permission. He said okay. I walked home. A while later he called me and said the job was finished—the tire was fixed. I walked to the shop, paid him, and drove home. 

The hole wasn't on the tread part of the tire, the part that contacts the road. It was on the inner sidewall. How the hole was made on that part of the tire is a mystery. But strange things happen. Once, a long time ago, I had driven to Richmond to do some business, and when I got back to my car I saw that one of the wheels was low on air. As it wasn't yet flat, I drove the car home, which took 30 to 45 minutes on an Interstate highway. When I got home I had the tire repaired. The cause of the puncture was a spoon. That's right, they found a spoon inside my tire. 

One time my Jeep developed a flat tire while parked inside my garage. I backed the Jeep halfway out of the garage but then the tire came off the rim and I had to stop. I was able to get the wheel off the car by using two jacks. One was a bottle jack that came with the Jeep and the other was a hydraulic floor jack that I kept in my garage.

Another time I had a flat tire (not on the Jeep) and I had to change it beside the road. I removed four of the five lug nuts but the last nut was "frozen" in place. I walked to a gas station and borrowed a hammer and a cold chisel (a chisel made for cutting cold metal) and I walked back to my car and, using the hammer and chisel, I cut the lug nut off the wheel stud.

I've had other flat tires. None of them were fun. But s**t happens and it can be worse than a flat tire.