The Renegade Tire

I got a call this evening from the J. "Mom, I need you to call a tow truck for me. My back left tire flew off my car and I'm stuck on Santa Fe." Uh huh. So here's the whole comedy of errors - because it's too good not to share.

J and his friend N were driving down the street and heard a funny noise. They pulled over and found nothing wrong with the car that they could see so continued on their way. A short time later they stopped at a red light. Well, the car stopped but the back tire just kept going. It was flying away so fast that it flew right over the median, down the bank and into the river. N went chasing after it (not the best plan on a busy street I might add...). He saw it going for the river, took off his shoes as he was running, pulled up his pant legs and jumped in the river only to find that he couldn't reach it. He jumped out, found a nice long stick, jumped back in and rescued the renegade tire.

They couldn't put the spare on or even the rescued tire because, of course, the lug nuts flew off with the tire and one generally doesn't carry around extra lug nuts in case of renegade tires... So they called for a tow.

I was on the phone with the insurance company to arrange a tow, my brother, S, to ask car suggestions, and J who had called back to tell me never mind the tow because the police just showed up and the officer said he'll help them fix the tire and he'll get the tow company they use to come out.

They took one lug nut from each of the other tires and put the renegade tire back on with those lug nuts so that each tire had only 3 lug nuts. (Can I trust two teenage boys to drive safely and *slowly* home with fewer than recommended lug nuts on every single tire?? Eeek!)

S left work to go help the guys and called to say he couldn't find them and where did I say they were? I gave him the location, as far as I knew, hung up and called N to ask if they were on their way home.

"Well, not yet. See, we left the doors open during all this and now the battery is dead. We're in the motel parking lot and someone is giving us a jump."

Just this morning I gave J a kit with jumper cables for his car and as he was leaving I reminded him to put it in his trunk. Inspiration, ja? Ja!

I told the boys to wait there as S would be coming to follow them home and make sure they arrive safely then I'll take N home in a safe and properly working car. I called S and directed him to the Murder Motel (naturally that's not really the motel's name but when I was a teenager there was a murder there and I remember seeing it on the news and it just stuck with me so now I call it the Murder Motel and I can't imagine for the life of me why anyone would stay there!) where he found them safe and sound.

Tomorrow we'll go have a lug nut pressed for the back tire and then the wheels should all be safe and sound. And we'll get a new battery.

Whew! What an adventure. Thank heavens for a kind police officer and for kind Providence!