Day of the tire

Friday afternoon. Rush hour. Now normally I get off early enough that I dont worry too much about getting caught in traffic. Friday I was praying for bumper to bumper. And here's why.


It's time to change the tires on the truck. I already drove one of them off the rim a couple weeks ago & still havent had the money to get it fixed. The other front tire is howing bad signs of wear. So much so that I'm praying on the way to work for safe passage. Please God grant me safe passage. I'm trying the best I can & I need your help & grace to see me through. Please just let me get there & back. So you be the judge if my prayer was answered.


I leave work between 2:30 & 3:00. Headed home down 400 S. Middle lane, 68 mph. The left front tire explodes. Or so I thought. 60 degrees out so the window is down & the tread comes off the tire & slings past me so close I felt the breeze. Missed my arm by inches & it flew up & past. Violent shaking. Instability. Cars at speed on both sides of me. BRAKES! I fight to keep it in the lane, hit the signal & bail for the shoulder. Whew! Stopped. Damnit! I'm 40 miles from home. Just south of Alpharetta & I'm going to Riverdale. SHIT!


I have no spare. It's on the right side already. What am I gonna do. I almost gave up & just sat down to cry. Wait a minute. That tire has air in it still. It only threw the tread cap. Wow! Thats impressive. I back up on the shoulder about 50 ft & hit the off ramp. Tire slapping the inner fender well the whole way. I felt like a NASCAR driver trying to make the pits without destroying the vehicle in the process. I drive, very slowly on this thing to a parking lot where I can break out some tools & really assess the damage. There's a huge chunk of loose rubber still attached. I have to get that removed. Every time the wheel rolls its slinging this hunk of tire carcass into the fender. Its an awful noise. And the truck shakes so bad @ 20 mph I can barely limp it around. Where's a Wal-Mart? They have cheap tires.


So I'm around Perimeter Mall. Surely theres something around here. I pull in at a strip mall & ask for directions. I actually asked 3 people. Surprisingly I got 3 different answers. So with no real sense of where I was headed I venture off again. Hazard lights flashing. Tire carcass slapping. It's so loud & violent that people walking the streets are turning around looking for the shooter a block before I can get to them. It was bad. A Marta Station. HEY! I could carry the bad tire home on the train & have someone pick me up on the south side. Naw. Don't panic Greg. Just figure it out.

A-HA!!! A freakin Wal-Mart. And I only had to drive about 6 miles to find it. I drive around back. Looking around the corner the whole way to see the auto center. And as I am hunched up on the steering wheel I can feel my frustration grow more the farther round back I get. This must be the only Wal-Mart SUPERcenter that I've ever seen that has NO auto center. Screwed again. Come on! Really? Yep. No tires. But while I'm here I'll look for something to hack this chunk of tire off. I find a cheap hack saw for $4 & go to work in the parking lot. 30 minutes later the hunk of rubber gets tossed into the bed. But the fender is a mess. It could be worse but it ain't good.


OK so now I guess lets find a tire place. I ask 3 people at Wal-mart & again get 3 different answers. But one of them sounded competent so I follow his advice. He was also the only guy to see me in the parking lot & asked if he could be of help. He commented on how blessed I was that nothing more serious happened & how amazing it was to see the tire was still inflated. Commented on my ingenuity & helped all he could. Or all I would allow. But it hit me. I was blessed here. I could of went careening across 3 lanes of interstate & left a path of destruction in my wake. I could be sitting on the side of the road with a flat 40 miles from home. Instead I'm talking with a man that helped me put some perspective & a smile back on my face. And I'm not so sure it wasn't God himself using this guy as His vessel. But I'm still stressed. And this is far from over.


So I'm off again and now the tire slapping has stopped. No more damage being done to the truck & this thing is actually, sorta, driveable. I drive slowly the 3/4 of a mile to the Goodyear store @ the mall. So Wal-Mart doesn't do  tires here but Macy's does??? I walk into the shop, fire off the tire size to the kid behind the counter who looks at me like I'm speaking Swahili. The manager asks if he can help. I tell him the story & that I need the cheapest tire he's got. 5 minutes later I'm given an estimate for $250. $400 if I buy 2. I don't have that kind of money available right now. Sad I know but true. Hey! No problem. I can FINANCE tires. WTF has this world come to when it's a regular thing for people to have to finance tires? Thanx but no thanx.


I make a call to a friend close to home & ask for some help. Call around locally & find me some USED tires. CHEAP! Please. And while you do that I'm just gonna limp this thing toward home til it gives out. Maybe that will be close enough to a bar so I have some place to drown my sorrows while the calvary mounts up.


It's now after 4pm. Traffic is in full swing. Bumper to Bumper. Well at least I dont have to worry about goiing too fast or drawing attention to myself. I'm creeping along, Thru the 285 interchange. Thru the toll booth. And now traffic lightens. So I'm off on the shoulder. About 20mph. Hazard lights flashing again. Passing cops on the shoulder. Ocassionally having to jump into a lane to get around other cars & debris that litters the shoulder. Don't run anything over or I'm stuck right here.


I cant go faster than about 42 or the shaking is so bad I can hardly control the wheel in my hands. Thank you God for power steering. Thru the 400/85 merge & straight into downtown Atlanta. 6 lanes wide of parking lot. Off goe the hazards & creeping along. 5 oclock comes & goes. Past I-20 now & headed home. I made it to the southside. 25 miles gone. 20 to go.


All of the sudden, as if I don't already literally have my hands full theres a HERO truck behind me. I'd stop for him but there's nothing he can do for me so if you could turn off those lights & take the attention off me that would be cool. I mean the damn thing isnt registered. I'm a rolling infraction several times over. As I get to the 75/85 split I realize I'm gonna have to cross 3 lanes of traffice to get to 75. Cars going past at 75mph. And theres just no way thats happening. So I guess its backroads. I bail off @ Langford Pkwy and figure I'll go around the airport to Riverdale Rd but I have no idea how to get there.


I get some directions by phone but its tough to decipher & I'm a stress bunny. My back is so tight I can feel the muscles constrict as I move. So its down the Pkwy past where I should have gone & wind up @ 285. FUCK!!! This is worse than 75. Really dangerous & if you didnt already know Atlanta drivers have to be some of the most poorly skilled, impatient, rude drivers I've ever seen. And I've driven all over. Foreign countries even & these people suck. If you've lived in Atlanta your whole life & think you drive well you're WRONG!!! And being as you have no basis of fact to base anything on don't argue withe me. You suck. Deal with it.


So I limp down 285. Make it to Old National. Onto the back roads to Riverdale Rd. More back roads & I can see home. I'd drive it home on the rim at this point. Ahhhh, my driveway. I left work @ 2:40. It's now 6:50.

Saturday morning I'm gonna take it up to the tire store. 2 used tires that I get to choose & the total mounted & balanced......80 bucks total. One thing about living in a poor neighborhood is you can get stuff cheap if you look hard enough. And now I still have enough to put gas in the truck for work & eat.


BUT, somewhere along the way I tore something up in the braking system. I have a leak & no pedal pressure. Fixed or not I'm driving it to work on Monday. I'd take the bike but it needs a front tire too. And thats one vehicle you dont want an explosive blow out @ 70 mph with.


Now, do I have the worst luck? Or am I blessed beyond belief? You could debate either side but to look at the corpse of a tire & know what I just went through to get to where I am I think I'll go with the blessing. What do you think? And YES! I drove home 40 miles on this.