Those Were Hard Miles

We are recovering from a weekend of bad tire Karma (Tirema?). On Saturday, my brother was in town and we went out to a BBQ at cousin Roger's house near the lake. Grandpa's caregiver Lisa drove him out to join us in G-Pa's 2000 Dodge. Halfway through the evening, we realized one of his tires had gone flat. I changed the tire and put on the spare. It was flat.

The next day, our minivan had a flat while we were coming home from dinner at Jill's mom's house.

[Note: I recognize that at this point in the story, it sounds a lot like everything you hate about blogs, and Facebook, and the inter-web. I woke up at seven fifteen. I ate toast for breakfast. I may go to the store. Stay with me, it gets better.]

We pulled the van over to a scenic overlook off of Loop 360. Very dark, very secluded, but ultimately very scenic. There were two cars parked there, likely engaged in some nefarious activity. After the girls wandered up to the windows and looked in (I was changing the tire!) we realized these people were only fornicators. Hey, they could have been drug dealers, mattress tag rippers, or people trying to vote illegally (only funny if you live in Texas...and follow the legislature...and their efforts to curtail phantom vote fraud...OK it's actually not funny even if you are from Texas). But I got the spare on and we survived, and the girls got an interesting but unexpected lesson about anatomy, AND got to use their favorite words "penis" and "vagina" in the proper context.

I picked up my grandfather's car yesterday to go get him a new tire. Seems he didn't even know he'd even had a flat. He seemed a bit, well, pissed, that Lisa had not told him. My first thought was how amazing it would be if the only time I heard about car problems was AFTER someone had already fixed them for me. But then I thought about how frustrating it would be to be 98 and out of the loop in your own life.

So I drive the old Dodge to get a new tire. It drives like one would expect an almost decade-old American car to drive - not so good. Thing is, he's only put 31,000 miles on it. That's like, a block a week! The other three tires were almost brand new. The beat-up old car reminded me of a line from that old Tracy Chapman song: "his body's too old for working; I say his body's too young to look like his."

He lives at the top of a hill, and at the bottom is a very busy intersection. For years, whenever I drive him, he tells me to be careful at this intersection because it is very dangerous. I always waved it off. "Yes, Grandpa. You've told me that before."

What I didn't realize is that he sees it as dangerous because HIS BRAKES DON'T WORK AT ALL!!! I was stomping to the floor. I had to pull a Flintstones to get the car to stop. Which caused me to ponder whether his extraordinarily bad driving was the cause of the condition of the car, or if the unique American craftsmanship was the cause of his bad driving in the first place.

Either way, that car was a 34-year-old waitress smoking three packs a day, drinking Jack Daniels, and looking 55.

"You want fries with that, hon?"