Flat (and) broke

I'm sorry - was I just mentioning Triple AAA? Well, that turned out to be aptly prophetic, as about three hours after I wrote that last post, I experienced my very first flat tire.

No, I've never had a flat tire before, but keep in mind I lived in NYC for seven years without a car. Before and since then, well, I just got lucky. And even now, it turned out, I was very lucky indeed, as I wasn't alone, wasn't on the freeway, and in fact, was already parked before I realized what had happened.

Thursday night I went to the gym after work, and then had plans to order dinner in at a friend's house. Halfway there, I heard a noise coming from the rear tire, sounding possibly like something was caught in it, like a paper bag or maybe a stick. With every rotation I heard a clicking sound, and while I considered that maybe something was wrong, my car seemed to be running just fine. As I exited the freeway, I heard a loud bang on my rear window, and figured that whatever had been lodged in there must have come out, because the noise stopped thereafter.

It didn't even occur to me that my tire might be flat. I've always figured that when it happened, I would know. I figured wrong. I pulled up to my friend's house, parked on her street, and got out to check to make sure that all was well. And that's when I saw that my rear passenger tire was slowly deflating.

I called my friend to come downstairs and look, to confirm that this was, indeed, the problem. (Slow learner? Yep.) So then I called Triple AAA and while they were very helpful, they said it would take an hour for the tow truck to come. That struck me as scary. I mean, I was fine with my friend and happy to burn that hour with a beer and picking up our food, but if I WAS alone on the freeway? Or in a weird part of town? That would suck.

The tow truck ended up coming within 40 minutes anyway, and they put on the spare in 10. My friend had to explain to me what to do next. "Go to a tire store tomorrow, see if they can patch it up, and if not, you'll have to buy a new tire." A tire store? What's that? I honestly really am lacking when it comes to cars. But then I remembered that there is a Firestone practically across the street from me, and then about three other tire places nearby. It's funny how you can pass things every day and not even notice them.

I ended up going to Firestone the next morning, and having to buy a new tire. I had comparison shopped online beforehand, because I didn't want to seem as uneducated as I had been the night before, but I still ended up spending a few hundred dollars I would have much preferred stay in my bank account.