Nicole Tasker Woods

I have said before that I have bad car karma and last night furthered my belief in this. I was on my way home from a long day at work and traffic was bumper-to-bumper. I had a cop behind me so I was focusing on the road, no radio, no mirror glances to admire my classic smile–I was determined to not be pulled over.

Cops are notorious for pulling over anyone and everyone before a holiday weekend for doing something so minimal and insignificant, thus my cautious driving. It was 5:35 and I was about 10 miles from home when I heard a loud thud thud thud coming from my left rear tire. I though I had gotten a rock stuck and it was getting kicked up inside of the car causing the noise, but when it did not go away, I turned my hazards on and pulled over on the 101, one of the busiest freeways in the San Fernando Valley. I crawled into the passenger seat, got out and carefully stuck my head into traffic to see my tire, which was now flat. Argh!

A large piece of medal that was molded into a half-circle (like a horseshoe) with bolts on the ends had gotten lodged into my tire, ripped a large hole and released all of the air. I immediately called AAA and then saw the cop (who was behind me on the freeway before hitting the piece of metal) pull up behind me on the side of the road. After hitting on me, he made fun of my license plate and then told me he had called the highway service guy to come change my tire for me. I told him I had already called AAA but he said that was fine, whoever got here first could help me.  Surprisingly, the highway service guy was there first and had already gotten the car jacked up before AAA could arrive. When he did, they exchanged friendly service guy handshakes and the AAA guy was on his way.

At 5:59 I was merging back into traffic and on my way to the Just Tires where I had (only a few months ago) purchased four brand new tires. By 6:30, the tire was replaced, the spare was back in my trunk and I was on my way home to see my big brother, Curtis, who is going to spend the holiday weekend with us before driving up north to San Jose where he is moving in with friends.