Misadventure

Yesterday I had some time and thought I'd take a longer-than-usual drive so I drove out on I40. All fine and dandy, but right as I'm deciding it's time to turn around and head back, I see the tire pressure light come on. Well, I was coming right up to the exit anyway and there's a gas station there so it's not bad timing. I pull in and look for the air pump, it's weirdly hard to find because the gas station is so crowded with people. I guess it's a case of the only thing that's open on a Sunday in that part of rural Fayette County. But I find it and see that one of the tires is very low on air. So I start pumping the air (and here's where I thank Mary Beth for always keeping a small stash of quarters in the car), but I quickly realize the tire that's low has a strong hissing sound coming from it. So it definitely has a leak and not a slow one. Should I just pump it up and hope it lasts til I get back? Then I see it just going completely flat or causing some kind of blow out mishap leaving me on the side of the interstate having to change it out anyway, and yeah, did not want that. So I put on the spare while I was at least not in mortal danger. It was a pain though 'cuz that's the wheel that has a fucked up bolt that had had a stripped lug or something and they had to cut it and it has a weird, different sized bolt on it that's weirdly difficult to get off, I think it doesn't quite fit any of the pieces of the cross wrench and I kinda had to tilt it at an angle to get it to screw at all. It finally took and I got it changed, but it was a pain. And here I am out in the middle of the damn country on a Sunday wearing a blasphemous The Body shirt (at least it's such that if you're not looking closely it could look devoutly religious) so I made sure to keep my jacket on even though it's on the warm side for physical activity. But all was fine. I first wonder if I should take some backroads given that I'm riding on the spare and can't go too fast, but from where I was it looked complicated as fuck and would take forever to get back in town (really, might even miss the window for dropping the car off at Firestone) so I decided I'd just drive back on the interstate, keep below fifty, and throw on the blinkers. So that's what I did, slowly making my way back as everyone rushed around me. I made it to Firestone and dropped the tire off. Well, it's too worn out to fix so they'll have to replace it with a new tire but they don't have that size in so I'm just waiting for it now. Later at night Mary Beth finished reading to me The Hearing Trumpet by Leonora Carrington and it was good! My neck had gotten really sore again, but hopefully now it's feeling better? A little, maybe? Okay, I guess it's back to work now.