Flat as A Pancake

Saturday's breakfast: flat pancakes.

Daughter C tapped on the door last evening after we had retired to The Den.

"Mom?" she asked, "Did you know the truck has a flat tire?"

"Yeah. That tire is loosing air for some reason."

"No. I mean you have a flat tire."

Sure enough. Flat as a pancake.

You know how she knew? She walked out into the garage, after dark, and in the light of the pole light, the shadow of the truck offended her sensibilities.  One does not like to see a 4-legged truck down on one leg.

Mr. Big Food, The Truck & I had been over by the lake levy earlier that afternoon. There's no tellin' what happened. So I figured, hey, what the heck? And I showed Daughter C how to connect the air compressor to the 12-volt thingy and to the tire, and I gave her the tire gauge and I retired. Going from zero to forty was going to take a while.

She gave it her best shot and waited up while it pumped up. But by morning, The Truck was down again. 

Flat as a pancake.


What with Daughter C, Miss M and A. Leland all having vehicles, we are vehicle rich here at the Farm. So we went about our Sunday morning business of going to the Piglet, putting away the groceries, having second breakfast, taking the dogs out, having lunch (it was a lazy day), and so forth. By early afternoon we finally came face to face with the idea that The Truck was down and was not going to get up without our help.

And it was raining. And those lug nuts are factory-tightened. (We've been here before. Do you know what 'factory tightened' means?)

And that's when it hit us! We have Road Side Assistance with about a dozen different places. Here, Miss M was instrumental. While I sifted through the cards in my wallet, Miss M threw up her hands and decided it was okay-- just this once-- for us to live in the 21st century and avail ourselves of all the World Wide Web has to offer. She presented me with a piece of paper with all the relevant information.

Forty-five minutes later, the guy called for directions. Turns out his GPS couldn't find us. An hour or so later, he was in the driveway, tending to the fallen Truck.

So here's the question: Do I feel badly about asking someone to come out in the rain, on a Sunday, to put the spare on? Well. Yes. But Really. No.

Sonny's Auto or whatever has contracted with Ford Roadside Assistance. Sonny's is going to be able to bill Ford way more than it cost in mileage alone to change our tire. Sonny is going to stick it to the man. Good for Sonny.

Hey. I don't make these rules. The Sonny guy said his instructions were to go the 1) shortest (mileage) and 2) fastest (time) possible route. He told us where he lives. We all had a good laugh. He said he'd gone the back way but would log how they wanted him to go. You go, Sonny, Dude!

So no. I don't feel bad about pulling the Sonny dude away from this TV set on a rainy Sunday.

Sonny is going to make some money on this call. The Truck is back on its tires, we didn't have to unbolt those factory installed lug nuts.

And all is Good & Right in the World.