That’s how life treats you sometimes
I haven’t posted anything in quite some time, at least, I haven’t posted any real content in a while. I haven’t felt that there was too very much to say, I guess. Well now I have story to tell.
I worked last night till about 3am, upgrading the motherboard, processor, memory, hard drive and operating system on one of our servers here at work. Everything went pretty well and I went home tired but happy. I hit the sack at about 3:15. At about 8:45 I heard the phone ring and my son pick it up and answer. He likes to answer the phone, which is good for me, since I hate answering the phone. It all works out in the end. I heard him say into the phone that I was asleep, and then he brought me the phone and said it was Mom. She had an appointment to get her contact lens prescription updated, so it was convenient that I was home to be with the kids, and sleep, while she left to get her eyes checked. After I said hello to her on the phone she told me that she had gone to the wrong location for her appointment, so she had to hurry to the other location and she didn’t really know where it was. She had to reverse direction several times and finally, during one u-turn, she had hit a curb and flattened the tire on the car. So now she was at Macey’s and needed me to come rescue her. In my half asleep state, I almost decided to hang up and hit the pillow again. Realizing that would be a pretty serious mistake, I dragged myself out of bed and got dressed. She had the kids’ car seats with her in the car, so I had to decide whether to strap the kids into the back seat of the truck and hope we didn’t pass a police officer, or leave them home and risk them throwing each other off the couch. I went with the latter choice, but with a few instructions to Jonathan before leaving:
“In a minute I am going to call you on the phone and we’ll talk while I drive to where Mom is and rescue her.”
I took my cell phone and headset, turned on an episode of Blue’s Clues for the kids (thank heaven for DVR technology) and headed out. I went south, because Erica’s eye doctor is located in Provo, so I assumed she was at the Provo Macey’s. I called Jonathan and talked to him most of the way there. It’s amazing how little response you can get from a five-year-old when he is watching TV.
When I got to Macey’s I couldn’t find my wife and the stricken car. What to do? I dialed her cell phone knowing full well that it was sitting on the shelf at home, since that is where she always leaves it. Lo and behold she picked up. I told her I had driven around the parking lot and couldn’t see her. She was at the Macey’s in Orem, which is about 4 blocks from our house. How did I miss that?
“Call Jonathan and talk to him while I drive up there.”
It took me another 10-12 minutes to finally get to the right Macey’s and find her. She had put a one inch rip in the sidewall of the right front tire of the car and banged up the rim a bit. I was pretty concerned with what potential suspension damage there was but after getting the wheel off I couldn’t see anything. I was also concerned that the rim might not hold a bead anymore and I’d have to replace it. I could just imagine having to pay $500 for a rim and $1000 for suspension work having just two weeks ago paid off the loan on the car! I got the spare on and drove back home, then over to Pep Boys to get the damage assessed.
As it turns out the situation was covered by the road hazard warranty on the tire (my wife’s driving is a road hazard!) so I only had to pay $40 to get that replaced. The car drives just fine so the whole thing could have been a heck of a lot worse. Did I mention it was raining while I was changing the tire? It always rains every time I have to change a tire.
