Flat Tires

Well, it seems that flat tires follow me. I've gotten 3 in the past few months... This is what happened today:

We were driving up to my parent's house to visit my mom for her birthday (HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM) when Matt sped up and the car started making a funky noise.

Me: your car needs to shift
Matt: no it doesn't
Me: Look at your RPM's, you almost at 4. It needs to shift.
-- at this point, the car shifts, but funky sound continues --
Matt: something's wrong.

So we pull over, and there's a flat. I say, no big deal, there's a donut in the trunk.

Matt's trunk doesnt open. There's half a key broken off in the lock, and the button to open it from the front doesn't work.

So I squeeze into what has to be a 2x2 whole in the backseat and manage, after a few awkward minutes, to force the latch open from the inside.

And when I say awkward, I mean, I could fit through this whole up to my hips. So my bottom half is stuck in the backseat and my head and arms are in the trunk.

Next is getting the tire off.... One of the nuts is stripped. I really have to use the bathroom. So I leave Matt to wait for help to walk to the hotel about a mile ahead. A lady stopped and offered me a ride, but I refused. It ended up being further than I thought, but I made it in time. The lady at the front desk was SUPER nice and let me use the bathroom and even take some ice back for the cheese that was getting warm awful quick in the car. She offered me coffee and water and said I could stay as long as I liked to wait for help to arrive. But the cheese was getting warm. So I headed back --

And as it turns out the Maine Turnpike has tow trucks that just drive around and look for stranded people! And this guy managed to get the stripped nut off of the car and put the donut on, but the tire is ruined.

So we go to a local VIP to see if we can get a new tire real quick and still manage to make it up to see my mom. This guy says he had NO TIRES that were the right size, and that he would have to special order a nut -- odd for a tire store, to me.

Saco to Summersworth, we finally get 2 new tires (keep the treads even) and a rim to put the tire that wasn't ruined on for the future.

$200 later, we have a fun story, but we missed my mom's birthday and my friend's baby shower ...

Interesting day, to say the least.