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Day 18, Where I Blow Up My Vehicles

At the time of this post, just slightly over 24 hours left till Justin comes home.

After dropping the kids off at school (yay! another good drop-off!), I ran over to my insurance estimate office to get a written estimate on the damage to the truck. On my way home, I swung by the body shop to get the truck scheduled for it’s *gulp* $700+ repair and a rough estimate of length of time for repair (“at least four days” is what I was told). As I’m heading home, I call Goodyear to see if they can take me and my flat tire. Yes. I said flat tire.

Yesterday as I was heading home from the pediatrician’s office in my car, I got into the right-turn lane to turn into my subdivision and I suddenly heard that tell-tale whomp-whomp-whomp sound that you typically get with a flat tire. I cursed my luck, and crawled the block and a half into my garage. The kids and I got out to investigate but none of my tires appeared flat. I tried looking under the vehicle to see if I had something dragging, but didn’t see anything. I could not figure out what was making that sound.

I checked again at bedtime and both tires on my passenger-side appeared fine. This morning, however, not so much.

This one’s a two-fer…you get to see not only my lovely flat tire, but also the damage I inflicted upon my truck.

This one’s a two-fer…you get to see not only my lovely flat tire, but also the damage I inflicted upon my truck.

And here are some of my “action” shots of changing the tire all by my lil’ self.

Nice metal thingy in the treads, eh?  That's a custom feature, like glasspacks on your exhaust.

Nice metal thingy in the treads, eh? That's a custom feature, like glasspacks on your exhaust.


Here's that tire at another angle...note proper jack position (and yes, I will probably break my arm patting myself on the back).

Here's that tire at another angle...note proper jack position (and yes, I will probably break my arm patting myself on the back).


Poor little donut tire.  Though I'm considering replacing all my tires with these donuts to lessen my flat-tire frequency.

Poor little donut tire. Though I'm considering replacing all my tires with these donuts to lessen my flat-tire frequency.


The offending puncturer-er-er...a tow-pin of some sort.  The *long* part was in my tire.

The offending puncturer-er-er...a tow-pin of some sort. The *long* part was in my tire.


From start to finish, it took me about 22 minutes. The hardest part was getting the spare up-and-out of the trunk (because I was stupid enough to NOT take it out before I jacked the car up), and putting the flat tire in my trunk. But the tire was at least lighter than the dog I heaved-ho into my truck on Friday. I was so freakin’ proud of myself for changing my own tire, I told the guys at the Goodyear place, grinning like a ninny at them, hoping for a “good job, little lady!” Instead, they smiled wanly at me, probably thinking “whoop-dee-freakin’-doo…we change tires all the time, lady.”

Not to be discouraged from their lack of excitement over my new skill (dude, it’s totally going on my resume), I sat in the waiting area for them to quickly patch my tire and do an oil-change. A short while later, they broke the bad news to me: my tire suffered too big a puncture wound to be patched and I would have to replace it. The tire I just bought in October. All I can say is Thank God for Road Hazard coverage. Again. I walked out of there with a bill for only about $68 for the oil change, installation of the new tire, and Road Hazard on the new tire. The tire itself was free to replace…a good $80 savings. I also walked out of there with a $300 estimate for new front brakes. ARGH! So for those of you keeping track, that’s about $1,100 in vehicle repairs…only a little over $200 is covered by insurance (darn that deductible again!). Hence, why I am considering parking my vehicles a little too close to a munitions test sites.

About the Author

Colleen

This is a blog where I will share my adventures and mundane tasks as a work-out-of-home-mom. I now have 2 kids and my wonderful husband, so the juggling has gotten a little bit more tricky (man-on-man defense). We also have 2 dogs and 3 cats (we used to have 4) so as you can imagine, our household is pretty busy. Since I never feel like I'm being listened to, I figured I'll just start talking at the general Internet community and see what happens.

6 Comments

Krissa

You need to be very proud of yourself! My parents wouldn’t let me get my drivers license until I could change a tire all by myself and I had to prove it, too! Too few people know how to change their own tire and it only cripples them.
Good for you!

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Flea

Oh ew. My Hunny just replaced all four tires, and he and a friend repaired one of mine. I seem to have a bad habit of driving over screws on a regular basis. And I won’t even go to the mechanic to ask about the rear end suspension, which sounds like it’s about to rattle loose at any moment. Where are those munitions sites again?

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Karen

I’m still stunned that you can change a tire. You’d think I’d know all about that stuff, but I’m clueless. Totally and helplessly clueless. Kudos.

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Nicole

Way to go, Momma! While things haven’t necessarily gone smoothly for you over the last 18 days, I am glad that they have been managable and that the boys have been cooperative.

(And I remember Cooper going nearly a year without gaining more than 10 ounces – the kid never stops eating, but also never stops moving! It has got to be a boy thing!)

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