I got tired.

Let me tell you a little story about our Friday night adventure. Andrew and I went to the gym and got home around 9:30 (yes, that is really how we spent our Friday evening). I showered and put on my pajamas, figuring we would watch a movie or something then go to sleep, as per our usual. But Andrew says, are you putting on pajamas? Maybe we should go get a beer instead. So I consider this briefly, and even though I didn’t really want to go, decide that maybe I should make more of an effort to be less lame, and put on real clothes instead. I even put on a bra—that is just how dedicated I was.

In the garage, I started to get in Andrew’s car because we would have to fill mine up with gas, and who wants to do that on a Friday night? We have places to be, you know. But he didn’t have his keys with him, so my car it was. And we went to a bar, and I drank some water and Andrew had a couple beers, and good times were had.

Feeling pretty pleased with ourselves for being such night owls, we left the bar around 11:15. I got in the driver’s seat and started to pull out of the parking lot. But something didn’t feel right with the car. It was dragging, and just not feeling normal. I pulled over before we even left the lot to find that sure enough, one of my tires was completely flat. Damn.

Fortunately, Andrew is kind of like MacGyver, so he set about the business of putting on the spare. We nearly froze during this procedure. It wasn’t that cold out (exactly 50 degrees according to the car), but I was just wearing sandals and neither of us had a jacket. And it was windy like Chicago.

And then the tire would not come off. It. Would. Not. Budge. So, feeling more than a little deflated (ha!), we called the 24-hour roadside assistance number. And Toyota got us help. But before the help came, we had some good quality time together sitting in the car. An hour and a half of quality time. And during that time, I reminded Andrew how I wanted to take his car instead.

The tire that refused to budge.

Andrew saving the day with his telephone.

When the help came (30 minutes after the expected arrival time), we had to get out of the car again so it could be rejacked up. And it was even colder than I remembered it being an hour before, except maybe it was windier this time. And the guy tried to pull off the tire, and it still would not budge. And then he dug around a bit in his truck, and pullet out a rubber mallet. A RUBBER MALLET??? This is all we needed to get the tire off? Bang, bang, a couple of swings of the mallet to the back of the tire, and no more stuck tire. And within 5 minutes, the spare was on and we were finally headed home.

Such a pretty spare tire!

And the story does not end there (although the good part does, sorry about the lackluster ending). The next day we took the car in to get the tire fixed. Upon daylight inspection, it looked as though there was a nail stuck in the tire. But the guy at the tire place said that actually, due to wear inside the tire (or something), it could not be fixed, and actually, the treads were really low on three of the four tires, so perhaps we should consider getting new tires. And we looked at the treads, and they were indeed worn down to nothingness. My car doesn’t even have 40,000 miles on it yet, just a mere 37,700. Could it really be time for new tires? But it was. So we replaced all four of the tires and ended up spending about 25 times more than anticipated.

And that is my story. Good times.