It starts like this. It was late last night, and I am driving on the road. I see this giant pile of what I think to be sand on the side of the road, but instead, it is a large chuck of what I can only guess is concrete. It looked something like this:
My stupidity led me to run straight over it with my back tire. I had a few reactions, at the very loud noise that was emitted. I thought I had died, I thought my car had died, and that my tire had died, but I pressed onward, just to be sure. SOMEHOW. I managed to get up the gorge and home, and after the first bought of noise, I thought, all was good, because I didn't have any problems.
The morning rolls around, and I have my 8 o'clock class with Susan. I go to Sev, and as I'm turning, I swerve all over the place. I chock it up to my alertness in regards to driving. It's 7 o'clock, I'm tired, Harry Potter is tonight (!), perfectly explainable. But, I'm cautions. After a few more swerving issues, I finally make it down the mountain and I'm on my way to WCU. Then, I hear this horrid noise, I feel the car going down, and near the Drake building, I pull over.
I knew what has happened. I knew since yesterday, that I was destined to have a flat tire. How this didn't happen until 12 hours later, I do not know. The smell of burnt rubber was everywhere, and I stepped out and looked. So while I stand out in the cold, bawling, slumped in submission and racked with despair, suddenly, my knight in his tacky Tubes tennis shoes appears. His first assumption is "Rachel has ran over a cat; I'll never see the end of tears." But he was wrong.
I run to him and sniffle out that I have a flat tire. We go and look at it and he asks questions, and I reinstate all the above, in between dramatic sobs. I tell him to go on; we have Susan's class and I'll figure out this tire thing. As I slowly bring out a diamond looking metal thing, I ask "I use this, right?" He shakes his head and tells me there are 2 more parts. I continue to persuade him, "Go on. Just leave me behind. I'm not worth it. I was made to suffer." And he almost does. But the fact that I look something like this:
Makes him say, "no I can't leave her." So, he sets out, on his mission, and we find the thingie that takes the nuts (or bolts, I don't know) off and on, and the thingie that cranks the jack up, and he talks me through it. I'm still in hysterics, but I explode when I hit my head on my hatchback. I begin to do that thing where I breath very fast but the air doesn't quite reach my lungs, so I begin retching for breath, and Chris has to say, "calm down Rachel, calm down. It's just a flat tire. Calm down, CALM DOWN. Get a hold of yourself." I'm so cold and all I want is to die along with my tire. He takes it off after a lot of elbow grease ("why are these so tight?!") as I watch with eager, tear-stained eyes.
Eventually, Chris gets everything in order, and he drives behind me as we go to the tire place, and I drive cautiously. The hole in my flat tire is literally large enough for Chris to stick his hand through, and we wonder how I managed to go on it for so long. We leave it at the tire place (my mom has set everything up) and Chris drives us to school, and we are able to make it to Jazz.
The moral of this story is that I have learned two things: A. I have to learn how to take care of myself. and B. Chris isn't a total jerk, and I owe him, yet again. It only took a flat tire to learn this.
And I probably shouldn't run over giant blobs of concrete.
-Me
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