Tire Crisis Averted

Last Wednesday morning I went out to my car to drive to work and saw that my driver's side rear tire was flat. All I could think was: Crap. That sucks.

I was a little freaked out about the financial implications - I thought I would have to buy a new tire, and I thought I remembered that you can't buy just one new tire because it will make the car unbalanced or something, so I thought I'd have to buy two or four tires. I was trying to figure out where to go to research tires while mentally draining my emergency fund by hundreds of dollars, but I was also trying not to worry about all of that too much yet, so I just got to work putting on the spare.

When I tried to loosen the lug nuts, however, I couldn't. Like, really really could not. At all. I put all my weight on the lug wrench, pushed and pulled in every way I could think of, and none of the lug nuts would budge.

Apparently I am a weakling.

I called my roommate to see if her boyfriend could come over and help me out. She couldn't get a hold of him, so that was not an option at the moment.

The next thing I thought of was to call a tire place and see if I could sweet talk them into sending someone over to help me. Since I thought I'd probably have to get new tires (the thought of repairing the flat one didn't occur to me), I hoped they might help a damsel in distress if they were getting some business out of it.

The first place I called was half helpful. The guy suggested calling a tow truck (which was not helpful because I didn't want to spend the money if I didn't have to), but he also suggested that the tire might be able to be fixed without buying a new one (which was very helpful because I didn't want to spend the money if I didn't have to).

The second place I called was actually where I'd just gotten my oil changed the day before. I'm not sure why I didn't think to call them first, but they were EXTREMELY helpful. They're a small independent shop about six blocks from where I live. They sent a guy over to my house, he put the spare on, I drove to their shop, and they fixed it for me and only charged me $20 for the whole shebang. Wahoo!

Crisis averted.