I've probably had five flats this year. But this time, I had no spare tire. The last flat I had was when my donut blew while I was driving to the tire store to replace a flat tire. Go figure. Yeah, the rim was bent on the donut, so they wanted to charge me $300 to replace it. I said no. If I break down with a flat, it will cost me less to get my car towed than to pay that absurd amount of money for a donut. I'll go to the junkyard and pay $15 for a spare from a wrecked car. Just give me the rubber from my old tire, and I'll keep it in my trunk.
Well, that was nine months ago and I never made it to the junkyard, but I did make an instant little adventure for myself when I got that flat tire on Sunday.
At first I forgot. I pulled off to the side of the highway and went about my way to changing the tire. I popped the trunk and - Oh Shit! - I don't have a spare.
I had to make a call. With 30 minutes to bide until my rescue, I decided to make myself useful. I jacked my car up with a creaky jack and put two big scratches on my car while doing it. That's okay; the war wounds will give it character I told myself. I jacked the thing all the way up before I realized I hadn't broken the lug nuts, so I cranked her back down. To break the lug nuts, I had to climb up and balance myself on the wrench and give it a few bounces with my entire body weight, so I'm lucky I didn't break my ankles or my neck given my tendencies toward falling. I jacked it back up and pulled my tire off just as my official help arrived. I tossed the flat tire and the spare rubber from my trunk into the truck bed, and we made our way up to the first service station off the next exit. For $15 bucks they put the spare rubber on and balanced it. All in all, it could have been a lot worse, but I think I'll be locating myself a real, functional spare tire asap for future breakdowns.
While I was stranded alongside the interstate fixing my tire, I had a few people pull off to see if I needed help. The first was a single, older white woman, perhaps in her late 50s. We chatted for a minute, and she went on her way. The second was three hispanic men, who got out of their car and asked if I needed help. I said thank you very much for stopping, but I was fine and had somebody on the way. They left. The third was a black couple. The man got out of the car and walked up. He said they were driving down the other side of the interstate when they saw me. That means they got off at an exit and turned around to come back up the other side of the interstate - just to help me. Wow, I said. Thank you so much but here's my help pulling up now. Thank you again. Thank you.
Thank you to these people who thought I might be in need and stopped to help. All of you. But in the 30 minutes I was standing on the side of the interstate, tell me, where were my white brothers? I just found it somewhat ironic that the only help that was not extended to me was from a caucasian male, but how many of them do you think passed me? Just wondering.
I may have been broken down, but at least my hair looked good. It's getting so long. I figured the length softens me up a bit, you know, from my otherwise hardened look. Haha.
After my breakdown, later that night with a foxy hairdo:
When Lady Love Became Your Majesty
So, I called my phone company today to increase my minutes plan. I've been going over my minutes every month, especially since I became the publicist for a local music venue, so I needed to upgrade. When I called in I was in quite a playful mood, and the service rep started out with "Thank you for calling t-mobile. How can I put a smile on your face today?" I started laughing and replied, "Well, I guess just asking worked, eh?" She asked if she may call me by my first name and I said, "Well, what else would you call me?" She replied that would call me whatever I wanted her to call me. I said, "How about 'your majesty'? Will you call me 'your majesty'?" She said sure and proceeded to call me "your majesty" throughout the rest of the call. Now that's what I call service.
~the lady love
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