So, last night was...interesting
I closed last night, which means working until 1 am. It was freaking boring. We're in that time period between the scorching summer and the freezing winter where people are finally spending more time outside again. Plus, school started not so long ago. I other words, business is slow.
That ends the boring portion of the night.
At about 1:15 am I was happily flying down I-70 toward home. I was keeping it at the speed limit (65 mph), the windows were down, the radio was playing. I was tired, but life was good.
Just as I was heading under an unlit over-pass (a small one, no need for extra lighting), for a split second I registered something in the road. But I couldn't avoid it. I learned a couple of minutes later that what I ran over was a metal pole of some kind. I never saw it, but if it was part of the other thing I saw off to the side of the road, it looked like part of some kind of roll cage for a vehicle. A smaller one.
It felt like I was dragging something under the car and I was barely able to wrestle the car to a stop on the shoulder. When I looked in my rear-view mirror, I noticed a car, mostly on the shoulder but with its front third still in the highway. They were just on the other side of the over-pass.
I set my hazard lights, got out and saw that my front left tire was completely flat. A quick look told me that the others were OK. I walked back up the highway toward the car behind me. It was a young woman driving and her male friend. I determined that they were OK, that they'd hit the same thing I had (they told me what it was), but they had 2 flat tires and of course only one spare. They called for a tow truck. I suggested they get their car completely off of the highway before some drunken asshole plowed into them.
Then I began the task of changing my tire. I have a small car and I've changed tires before (although in the middle of the night on a busy highway isn't one of my favorite places). Unfortunately my jack got a little wet and a little rusty and with my arthritis I couldn't get it jacked up enough for the tire to clear the ground. I walked back to ask the young man to just help me finish jacking it up and he met me about half-way coming to help. He finished changing the tire for which I profusely thanked him.
I was worried that there was something wrong with the undercarriage of the car, too, but it seemed as though everything was alright. Did I mention the 2 other cars on the shoulder about 1/4 and 1/3 of a mile respectively, in front of me? I'm pretty sure they hit the same thing which began life on the pavement considerably down the highway from where I hit it, but it kept getting thrown back by successive cars until someone finally had time to get it out of the road before someone else hit it.
So, I got to the next exit, which was mine, and by the time I was on the off ramp I knew something else was wrong. I got pulled into the dark parking lot of the Cracker Barrel and found out that, yep, my rear left tire was flatter than west Kansas.
I decided to call a cab and wait for the tow truck until the next day to try and lessen what was already going to be a large tow and repair bill. I only have liability. But being closing time on a Friday night, there was a 2 1/2 to 3 hour wait on a cab. So I decided to bite the bullet and pay for a night tow only to find out that the tow service I have programmed into my phone isn't a 24 hour service.
So, at 1:45 am, I decided to hoof it. I thought it was only about a mile but turns out it's closer to 2 miles. I'm a middle-aged, overweight, out of shape woman with rheumatoid arthritis and a right knee and hip that sometimes gives me trouble. It took me an hour and 15 minutes to walk home with a couple of 5 min stops along the way to sit and rest (one after climbing the hill that doesn't look nearly as big in a car, to let my heart quit pounding, and one about 3 blocks from home because my right hip felt as though it was either trying to burrow further into my body, or detach itself). Then, because I live on the 3rd floor, I had to sit at the bottom of the steps for 5 minutes before beginning my ascent.
I'm so fucking stiff and sore today I can hardly move. Luckily I found someone to cover my shifts today and tomorrow and I have Mon and Tue off to (hopefully) get my car fixed. I called the Cracker Barrel today and spoke to the manager and told him I'd have my car towed on Monday morning and to please not have it towed away before then. She was very understanding. Because there's no way in hell I could have made it down my stairs today.
It's a good thing I have a brand new jumbo box of kleenex, because I'm almost out of toilet paper.
And that's the least of my problems.
That ends the boring portion of the night.
At about 1:15 am I was happily flying down I-70 toward home. I was keeping it at the speed limit (65 mph), the windows were down, the radio was playing. I was tired, but life was good.
Just as I was heading under an unlit over-pass (a small one, no need for extra lighting), for a split second I registered something in the road. But I couldn't avoid it. I learned a couple of minutes later that what I ran over was a metal pole of some kind. I never saw it, but if it was part of the other thing I saw off to the side of the road, it looked like part of some kind of roll cage for a vehicle. A smaller one.
It felt like I was dragging something under the car and I was barely able to wrestle the car to a stop on the shoulder. When I looked in my rear-view mirror, I noticed a car, mostly on the shoulder but with its front third still in the highway. They were just on the other side of the over-pass.
I set my hazard lights, got out and saw that my front left tire was completely flat. A quick look told me that the others were OK. I walked back up the highway toward the car behind me. It was a young woman driving and her male friend. I determined that they were OK, that they'd hit the same thing I had (they told me what it was), but they had 2 flat tires and of course only one spare. They called for a tow truck. I suggested they get their car completely off of the highway before some drunken asshole plowed into them.
Then I began the task of changing my tire. I have a small car and I've changed tires before (although in the middle of the night on a busy highway isn't one of my favorite places). Unfortunately my jack got a little wet and a little rusty and with my arthritis I couldn't get it jacked up enough for the tire to clear the ground. I walked back to ask the young man to just help me finish jacking it up and he met me about half-way coming to help. He finished changing the tire for which I profusely thanked him.
I was worried that there was something wrong with the undercarriage of the car, too, but it seemed as though everything was alright. Did I mention the 2 other cars on the shoulder about 1/4 and 1/3 of a mile respectively, in front of me? I'm pretty sure they hit the same thing which began life on the pavement considerably down the highway from where I hit it, but it kept getting thrown back by successive cars until someone finally had time to get it out of the road before someone else hit it.
So, I got to the next exit, which was mine, and by the time I was on the off ramp I knew something else was wrong. I got pulled into the dark parking lot of the Cracker Barrel and found out that, yep, my rear left tire was flatter than west Kansas.
I decided to call a cab and wait for the tow truck until the next day to try and lessen what was already going to be a large tow and repair bill. I only have liability. But being closing time on a Friday night, there was a 2 1/2 to 3 hour wait on a cab. So I decided to bite the bullet and pay for a night tow only to find out that the tow service I have programmed into my phone isn't a 24 hour service.
So, at 1:45 am, I decided to hoof it. I thought it was only about a mile but turns out it's closer to 2 miles. I'm a middle-aged, overweight, out of shape woman with rheumatoid arthritis and a right knee and hip that sometimes gives me trouble. It took me an hour and 15 minutes to walk home with a couple of 5 min stops along the way to sit and rest (one after climbing the hill that doesn't look nearly as big in a car, to let my heart quit pounding, and one about 3 blocks from home because my right hip felt as though it was either trying to burrow further into my body, or detach itself). Then, because I live on the 3rd floor, I had to sit at the bottom of the steps for 5 minutes before beginning my ascent.
I'm so fucking stiff and sore today I can hardly move. Luckily I found someone to cover my shifts today and tomorrow and I have Mon and Tue off to (hopefully) get my car fixed. I called the Cracker Barrel today and spoke to the manager and told him I'd have my car towed on Monday morning and to please not have it towed away before then. She was very understanding. Because there's no way in hell I could have made it down my stairs today.
It's a good thing I have a brand new jumbo box of kleenex, because I'm almost out of toilet paper.
And that's the least of my problems.