This (OK, Last) Weekend III

One more thing about this (OK, last) weekend.

The wedding rehearsal and rehearsal dinner were in the Bay Area last Thursday night. The Muse, Enthusio and The Mermaid needed to be at the rehearsal at 6 p.m. in the Bay Area. They needed to leave Carmel-by-the-Causeway (thanks, Bob Dunning) about 2:30 to get everything done that they needed to do in order to get to the rehearsal on time. I wanted to go then, but work had other ideas, so I had to go later. (As they tell you your first year of law school, "The law is a jealous mistress.") I personally left Carmel-by-the-Causeway at about 6 p.m.

Just west of Carmel-by-the-Causeway on the freeway, I hit something in the road. Didn't see it. Usually, you can see things like torn-up tires and pieces of wood and parts of couches in the road and avoid them. I try really hard. I didn't anything this time and had the most God-awful thump on El Machino. I pulled off the road at the next exit to check my tires, but didn't see anything. (It did beat up the front spoiler. Hello, weeks of dealing with insurance, body shops and rental-car agencies. At least it wasn't my fault this time -- I don't want to hear any BS about my driving, Intenseus and Guitar Guy.) So I drove on down to the rehearsal dinner, about an hour away by freeway.

Fast forward to the night after the wedding reception. The Muse pulls up in El Machino and tells me, with one of the most troubled faces I've ever seen her have, and says, "There's something really wrong with the car. It's driving funny and smells like rubber." This is 10:30 p.m., so I go outside to see what I can see in the dark. Even in the dark, it's obvious immediately that the right front tire is flat as a delayed reaction to The Thump. I feel relatively relieved at that moment. It's just a flat.

I call AAA to come put the spare on the next day. (No, I can put a spare on. I just figured that this is El Machino, I haven't changed a tire on it before and we pay for AAA, so what the hell.) So the AAA guy pulls the flat tire off. Oh my god, was it a mess.

Basically, the cords were ripped out through the rubber all over the inner side of the tire. There were large gashes that apparently had taken a while to split all the way open to let the air out of the tire. It was bad, bad, bad. The Thump must have torn it up at least some in ways that I couldn't see on Thursday. Yikes.

At that moment, I am thinking, "Oh . . . my . . . god, are we lucky." I drove on that thing for an hour. The Muse drove on it some. She drove Ms. Lively around on it on her wedding day. Thank you, thank you, thank you for not letting it blow up. It was just a good moment to reflect and be thankful for what we have.

So what is at least one moral to this story? Really try not to run into things on the freeway. It's bad.