Slice of Life Stories

One of my favorite professional blogs is Two Writing Teachers. They have a project called SOLS, Slice of Life Stories, in which they challenge people to write little vignettes of daily life and post them. So, I am challenging myself to write a slice of life on Tuesdays. Yes, I realize it’s Wednesday, but last week’s stressful week has now become this stressful week. I keep telling myself things will be less stressful once literacy night (tonight) is over, but I think I’m a bit delusional. Anyway, on to my slice of life.

Monday when I was getting into the car to leave work to go to a meeting, I noticed that the front driver’s side tire  on the car next to me looked low.I knew who the car belonged to. I briefly considered going in to tell her about her tire, but I didn’t. I had to get to my meeting. I forgot all about it until I got up yesterday morning. It was cold and I knew Id have to scrape, so I was a little grumbly. As I opened the driver’s side door I saw that my  front driver’s side tire was almost flat.

I am an introvert and a big self-talker. The words going through my head were ” Crap, crap, crap” and “Don’t cry”. For the record, “crap” is my favorite expletive and it says so on my Ravelry profile. After scraping the car to the rhythm of my mantras, I decided to drive 2 blocks to the gas station to see if it was fillable or if I had to call Triple A. The kind lady behind the counter at the gas station exchanged my quarters for a dollar and I was able to fill the tire. well, I almost filled it. It was a cold morning and my hands didn’t seem to want to cooperate, but the tire was full enough to drive to work when the air pump stopped.

I made it to work and checked the tire at noon and again before leaving. It looked about the same, so I figured I’d stop by the gas station near school, fill it up the rest of the way and hope that I didn’t have a repeat the next morning. I had my blinker on to turn right, into the gas station, when a little voice told me to keep going straight to Les Schwab Tires, just to have them take a look at it, thinking there might be a slow leak. So, I turned off the blinker, and did so.

Les Schwab Tires has been good to me, helpless female who knows nothing of cars. I told them my problem and then had to wait almost an hour. There was a point when I grumbled a bit, thinking I’d wasted my time. Then, my name was called and I was good to go. In fact, I was better than good. It turns out, there was a screw in my tire. If I hadn’t stopped in to have them check the tire, I would have a had a repeat performance today. I might have cried if that had happened.