I Experience Friday The 13th One Week Late
...an entry in which I discourse at length about cars, offer up a cautionary tale for you all, and use the word "tyres" a lot, which I spell all Britishly not because I am pretentious but because I am a huge fan of Formula One Racing which means that's how I'm used to seeing it written. Eh, come to think of it, I AM pretentious. We F-1 fans are. We blow our noses at you, NASCAR! Turn right sometimes, damn you!
I awoke to WSB telling me that my commute was going to suck mightily, not because of anything on MY highway, but a wreck on the perimeter had things so clogged up that traffic was backing up onto my highway. Surprisingly, my drive went quite smoothly and I got to work with time to spare! How unsettlingly odd, I thought, something going well - which means that something terrible must be about to happen. It was as I passed over the speed bump in the parking deck that a loud, most unusual CLONK! sound occurred. Not normal at all. I parked my car, got out and scoped it. My passenger-side rear tyre was as flat as a pancake!
I have no idea what happened or how long it had been going flat; the car never pulled to that side or made that terrible whomp-whomp-whomp sound. I decided there was nothing I could do at that moment so I walked on into my office. Alan and I exchanged some e-mails about the situation, discussing whether I'd change the tyre myself, if I needed rescue, if so whether he'd rescue me or I'd call in professionals (we don't have AAA, but we have AllState's version of it). I was going to leave it until the end of the afternoon but The Boss encouraged me to address the issue sooner rather than later, so around 3:15 I headed back to the parking deck to see what could be done.
Wow! What fun! Upon arriving at my vehicle I discovered that now my front passenger tyre was flat as well!
This negated the issue of tyre-changing, since I only had the one spare. I decided that the best course would be to re-inflate both and see if they would hold air, since I saw no major damage during my visual inspection (which is good, but begs the question "what the hell???").
Luckily, I was able to do this as I carry a portable air compressor with me at all times.
Why, you ask? Well, because I am the unluckiest lucky person in the world. I am lucky enough to own a gorgeous sports car which is the only car I have ever wanted since I was about five, but unlucky enough to be unable to drive it more than 25 feet without running over something and ruining a tyre.
It seems that unlike normal people, who pick up a nail in their tyre maybe once every couple of years, I could not go a week without getting at least one nail in at least one tyre. I do not exaggerate - it got so bad that the guys at my local tyre store of choice started joking with me that if I'd pay them $50, they'd take the magnets out of my tyres. I had a TAB, for fuck's sake! For plugs! At the tyre store! But I kept having to deal with it, over and over and over, because the Corvette takes special high-performance tyres anyway, and I'd decided at some point that my life would be meaningless unless I shod her in BF Goodrich G-Force racing tyres, so I have very big, very wide, and, uh, very-not-exactly-inexpensive tyres on the 'Vette. Put it this way: one of these tyres costs more than you'd pay for four regular tyres for a normal car. (I'm not kidding.) Therefore, I was always having to have them repaired because I couldn't just replace them at the drop of a hat - or a nail, ha ha ha.
If you've never had the extreme pleasure of driving a Corvette - and whoa, is it EVER such the pleasure - the thing is, they drive a lot like race cars, particularly with the tyres I chose and the suspension adjustments my dad made. If I lost more than a pound or two of air pressure in any tyre, the steering wheel would vibrate and the extremely fast, back-and-forth vibration (think fornicating gerbil on meth) drove me absolutely INSANE. The handling would go from beyond perfect to teeth-jarring horrible in .75 PSI, no joke.
Eventually I grew tired of dealing with this and related issues such as having to stop all the damn time at gas stations, often in skanky parts of town, having to always have a few quarters on me for the a-holes that charge for air, having to spend every Saturday morning at the tyre store getting plugs and fixes, so I bought this cute wee Campbell-Hausfeld air compressor at Home Depot. My morning routine included the time to check my air pressure and add a pound or two to whichever tyre wanted attention. Wearying, yes, but cheaper than a new G-Force racing tyre.
Time went by and eventually I faced the fact that I couldn't keep commuting every day in my Corvette because the mileage was approaching six digits and things were wearing out. I bought another car for daily use but I kept the Corvette. My dad and I started working on turning her into a racing-only car, putting in a Jegs racing clutch, making some adjustments here and there...I want a Brembo braking system, too, and Dad said he'd install it but it's $3,295 (front brakes only) so I haven't exactly done that yet, but in the meantime I drive the Sebring every day, except when I feel The Need. The Need For Speed.
At some point a road trip was nigh, and I thought to myself, "You know...you're a sweet young female going on a road trip alone. You're probably going to get a flat tyre in the dead of night out in the middle of nowhere, and while you're waiting for AAA, some smelly, toothless, tobacco-stained mutant is going to find you, kidnap you, rape you, torture you horribly, and the whole time you'll be thinking how stupid you are because you already own a freakin' air compressor and so you didn't have to stay stranded out on Highway 666 long enough for a serial killer to find you and make curtains out of your hair and lampshades of your skin!" Which is TOTALLY the kind of thing that would happen to me and so I relocated the wee little air compressor into the Sebring and it's stayed there ever since, un-re-charged, but today when I needed it, it still held a charge and it TOTALLY came through for me and puffed up not one but two tyres to the requisite 34 PSI and I was saved and the day ended without expensive fuckwittage or loss of life or anything horrible happening and I drove home on the highway at speeds of 45 - 65 and I'm still alive and nothing blew up and I'm typing this at home and all is well.
That little Campbell-Hausfeld air compressor is the best $40 I EVER spent. Go get yourself one, toss it in the boot of your car and thank me for the great advice, because while I would TOTALLY come to your rescue if you had a flat tyre, I might not be able to get there before Serial Killer Guy does.
...an entry in which I discourse at length about cars, offer up a cautionary tale for you all, and use the word "tyres" a lot, which I spell all Britishly not because I am pretentious but because I am a huge fan of Formula One Racing which means that's how I'm used to seeing it written. Eh, come to think of it, I AM pretentious. We F-1 fans are. We blow our noses at you, NASCAR! Turn right sometimes, damn you!
I awoke to WSB telling me that my commute was going to suck mightily, not because of anything on MY highway, but a wreck on the perimeter had things so clogged up that traffic was backing up onto my highway. Surprisingly, my drive went quite smoothly and I got to work with time to spare! How unsettlingly odd, I thought, something going well - which means that something terrible must be about to happen. It was as I passed over the speed bump in the parking deck that a loud, most unusual CLONK! sound occurred. Not normal at all. I parked my car, got out and scoped it. My passenger-side rear tyre was as flat as a pancake!
I have no idea what happened or how long it had been going flat; the car never pulled to that side or made that terrible whomp-whomp-whomp sound. I decided there was nothing I could do at that moment so I walked on into my office. Alan and I exchanged some e-mails about the situation, discussing whether I'd change the tyre myself, if I needed rescue, if so whether he'd rescue me or I'd call in professionals (we don't have AAA, but we have AllState's version of it). I was going to leave it until the end of the afternoon but The Boss encouraged me to address the issue sooner rather than later, so around 3:15 I headed back to the parking deck to see what could be done.
Wow! What fun! Upon arriving at my vehicle I discovered that now my front passenger tyre was flat as well!
This negated the issue of tyre-changing, since I only had the one spare. I decided that the best course would be to re-inflate both and see if they would hold air, since I saw no major damage during my visual inspection (which is good, but begs the question "what the hell???").
Luckily, I was able to do this as I carry a portable air compressor with me at all times.
Why, you ask? Well, because I am the unluckiest lucky person in the world. I am lucky enough to own a gorgeous sports car which is the only car I have ever wanted since I was about five, but unlucky enough to be unable to drive it more than 25 feet without running over something and ruining a tyre.
It seems that unlike normal people, who pick up a nail in their tyre maybe once every couple of years, I could not go a week without getting at least one nail in at least one tyre. I do not exaggerate - it got so bad that the guys at my local tyre store of choice started joking with me that if I'd pay them $50, they'd take the magnets out of my tyres. I had a TAB, for fuck's sake! For plugs! At the tyre store! But I kept having to deal with it, over and over and over, because the Corvette takes special high-performance tyres anyway, and I'd decided at some point that my life would be meaningless unless I shod her in BF Goodrich G-Force racing tyres, so I have very big, very wide, and, uh, very-not-exactly-inexpensive tyres on the 'Vette. Put it this way: one of these tyres costs more than you'd pay for four regular tyres for a normal car. (I'm not kidding.) Therefore, I was always having to have them repaired because I couldn't just replace them at the drop of a hat - or a nail, ha ha ha.
If you've never had the extreme pleasure of driving a Corvette - and whoa, is it EVER such the pleasure - the thing is, they drive a lot like race cars, particularly with the tyres I chose and the suspension adjustments my dad made. If I lost more than a pound or two of air pressure in any tyre, the steering wheel would vibrate and the extremely fast, back-and-forth vibration (think fornicating gerbil on meth) drove me absolutely INSANE. The handling would go from beyond perfect to teeth-jarring horrible in .75 PSI, no joke.
Eventually I grew tired of dealing with this and related issues such as having to stop all the damn time at gas stations, often in skanky parts of town, having to always have a few quarters on me for the a-holes that charge for air, having to spend every Saturday morning at the tyre store getting plugs and fixes, so I bought this cute wee Campbell-Hausfeld air compressor at Home Depot. My morning routine included the time to check my air pressure and add a pound or two to whichever tyre wanted attention. Wearying, yes, but cheaper than a new G-Force racing tyre.
Time went by and eventually I faced the fact that I couldn't keep commuting every day in my Corvette because the mileage was approaching six digits and things were wearing out. I bought another car for daily use but I kept the Corvette. My dad and I started working on turning her into a racing-only car, putting in a Jegs racing clutch, making some adjustments here and there...I want a Brembo braking system, too, and Dad said he'd install it but it's $3,295 (front brakes only) so I haven't exactly done that yet, but in the meantime I drive the Sebring every day, except when I feel The Need. The Need For Speed.
At some point a road trip was nigh, and I thought to myself, "You know...you're a sweet young female going on a road trip alone. You're probably going to get a flat tyre in the dead of night out in the middle of nowhere, and while you're waiting for AAA, some smelly, toothless, tobacco-stained mutant is going to find you, kidnap you, rape you, torture you horribly, and the whole time you'll be thinking how stupid you are because you already own a freakin' air compressor and so you didn't have to stay stranded out on Highway 666 long enough for a serial killer to find you and make curtains out of your hair and lampshades of your skin!" Which is TOTALLY the kind of thing that would happen to me and so I relocated the wee little air compressor into the Sebring and it's stayed there ever since, un-re-charged, but today when I needed it, it still held a charge and it TOTALLY came through for me and puffed up not one but two tyres to the requisite 34 PSI and I was saved and the day ended without expensive fuckwittage or loss of life or anything horrible happening and I drove home on the highway at speeds of 45 - 65 and I'm still alive and nothing blew up and I'm typing this at home and all is well.
That little Campbell-Hausfeld air compressor is the best $40 I EVER spent. Go get yourself one, toss it in the boot of your car and thank me for the great advice, because while I would TOTALLY come to your rescue if you had a flat tyre, I might not be able to get there before Serial Killer Guy does.
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