So there I was, trying to sleep in my car in the Titusville, FL Wal-Mart parking lot on a hot, sticky July night while forklifts and delivery trucks passed noisily by. RV campers cranked up their sound systems, and the uncovered parts of my body became a mosquito banquet. Given the heat, the miles of construction, and the fact that I knew I needed to replace that tire before I did another road trip, it was a case of inevitability meets Murphy's Law. I was driving back from a fabulous Rippingtons concert about 150 miles south of home, their Wild Card CD turned up full blast, looking forward to enjoying my only day off that week. All of a sudden the smooth ride got very bumpy, and I could hear the post-blowout "thwack" of the tire as I pulled off to the side of the road. No problem. It's always fun to change a tire on the side of a busy interstate at 2am in a skirt and high heels while 18-wheelers fly by at 90mph. Usually I carry a pair of jeans, a T-shirt, and sneakers for the ride back in case something like this does happe, but I was in a rush to leave the house so I left them on the couch.
A half hour later, tired, sweaty and covered with dirt, I am back on the road and looking forward to a long soak in the tub just 130 miles away. Barely back to speed limit it feels like one side of my car has dropped to the ground, and there's that "thwack" again. The spare blew. Whoulda thought? But there's an exit! All the exits in Florida are loaded with huge, well lit service stations offering gas, food and drink, souvenirs and information on timeshares and discounts to Disney and Universal... except for this one. I roll down the ramp into total darkness. No signs of life, commercial or otherwise, in sight. So I call AAA. They can be there by 4am, maybe 3:30 if all goes well. That's only about two hours. “Are you in a safe place?" they ask. Well, as long as no psychopathic ax murderer chooses this specific off ramp and decides to check out the car that is parked on the side of the road I guess I am. It's a dark blue car. Maybe the psychopathic ax murderer won't see it. AAA calls me back and says they notified the local police but since I am between the city and county jurisdiction the city police said call the county Sheriff and the person that answered the Sheriff's number said the city police station was only a few miles down the road so to call them. Fortunately, before that became necessary I saw flashing yellow lights in the distance. The tow truck pulled up and a person who was hopefully not a psychopathic ax murderer who had intercepted my cell phone signal and hijacked a tow truck got out, walked around the car, looked in the window, and said, "You've got a flat tire." "No Sir," I replied, "I have two flat tires." He tells me the obvious: there is no place nearby where one can get a tire fixed in the middle of the night. My personal feeling is if there are places where you can buy deep discounted tickets to tourist attractions at this hour there should be places where you could get a tire fixed. But that's just me. He tells me there is a Wal-Mart a few miles down the road. Their tire store opens at 7am, and there are a lot of people camping in the parking lot because of the Space Shuttle launch so I should be safe there, if not comfortable. So that's where I ended up.
I tried to wash off the dirt and grease in their clean, well lit restroom without looking in the mirror and scaring myself to death. Then I wandered the aisles for a while and considered buying a skirt and some product that was guaranteed to make your face look 10 years younger after just one treatment for only $29.97. There were some wistful looking shrubs in front of the garden center that were marked down 75% and looked like they could be saved, but plant rescue didn't seem practical when my back seat was filled with the stuff I had taken out of the trunk to get to the spare tire. I wandered back to my car and curled up in the back seat just in time to see another tow truck pull up. Somebody else had blown their spare tire too. It was a family. The couple said their child who slept through the whole adventure. I wish I had been able to do the same. We compared notes on sharp projectiles and bumps in the road before returning to our cars to get at least a little sleep before continuing our journeys.
The guy who opened the tire center actually nudged the rules and got us in early. I was back on the road by 7:30 and hit the Jacksonville city limits just in time to catch the tail end of our daily morning traffic backup. It took almost as long to get from there to my house as it did to get from Titusville to Jacksonville. Two weeks from now I'm going to Ft. Lauderdale to see an irresistible lineup that includes Richard Smith, Freddie Ravel, Chuck Loeb and the Sax Pack. It's 325 miles straight down good ol' I-95. I'm taking a little tote bag with some makeup and clothes and the rest of the space in the car will be taken up by at least four extra tires!
- Shannon West
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