Missouri to Illinois to Indiana a.k.a. blow out number three. Front drivers side blew. Luckily, or so we thought, we were on an off ramp off the 70 east (exit 1) headed into Indiana. If you have never experienced a tire blow-out before, well, I hope your first is not in a 34-foot Vectra Winnebago 1994. In order to ever get help from AAA, I am finding they inadvertently require you to memorize every ridiculous thing about your vehicle. (Read aloud with mid-west twang at an unusually slow pace and imagine speaking this way to a stressed distraught Italian), “Ummmmmmmmmmmmmm yes, mmmkay. And whaat exactly is the interior like? Is it a, would you say, very plush RV? Mmmm I see. Can I place you on hold?” – 45 minutes for what seems to be their lunch break- “ Okkkkay mam, yes I have someone over thataway. They’ll be there … eventually. So you need help changing a tiiire? Oh. Hmmm I don’t know if they do that. How many lug-nuts are on there and what is the diameter in millimeters of each lug-nut?”
I mean COME ON! We just needed someone to help change the tire. Grandpa didn’t need to be cultivating his third heart attack and after the bacon grease basted fried eggs I couldn’t talk him out of this morning, looks like the cultivating had already begun. So a 52-year-old country boy arrived approximately two-weeks later. With chew pouched in his cheek and tobacco brown stains on his teeth and around the edges of his lips, he proceeded to speak in, what sounded, a foreign language. After dropping the motor home off of the jack, sitting back and watching my grandpa do the majority of the work, taking a tip from my grandpa and saying, “well was hoping for more than that,” and making ME call AAA for the PO code he needed for the job, he made the mistake of talking to this Italian. He said, “weeeel yea. Yous gonna have tah put that tiiiire in the RV to dump it. Over there maybe off highway 40 or I don’t know where.” (did I mention he guessed I was 30-years-old?)
I lost it.
Hands moving violently like a true passionate Italian with voice loud as I could with the adrenaline pumping I was ready to take someone out, I said, “You have GOT to be freeking kidding me. That tire is going in the back of your truck. We can’t even drive our RV hardly and you are making US dump it. I don’t think so. I don’t care. You figure it out. You are dumping it. We are NOT taking this. NO. This is ridiculous.”
It felt so good…until the end of the ordeal when he said…well mam I wish you good luck at school, and he proceeded to talk about some “wooly-wallet worm” that he lit up when he saw crawling on the ground. “yea – it is a woodfsld wallet.” …a what? Grandpa’s wallet? “A woolly woolet. Big yeller one. Oh he’s way under there naw. Means wes gonna have a bad winter.” Poor guy. I don’t think he was 100% there, or the Midwest just has some odd way of fixing cars and angry women. Anyways I got his name and license plate number. What? I’m from LA…. I also apologized for my outbreak. C’mon I am a lover not a fighter.
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| Another Cross... it is upright in real life. I think this was Illinois? |
Determined to drive from Indiana to Lansing Michigan, where Uncle Sean and Aunt Beth live, on a spare, we continued. After calling what seemed to be every auto supply and tire shop around I came to the realization that the Midwest doesn’t make any sense. NOBODY sold rims/wheels. Even the largest RV place in the Midwest, according to their announcements when put on hold, did not sell rims and wheels even though it said they did on their website. With that, I wasn’t surprised when Uncle Sean said their carpet didn’t come today as planned. This is probably because the carpet place doesn’t actually sell carpet. They might know a guy who could though but that shop might not be open because it is after five. Oh and they do have great grits though. Really. I am being honest here. I also discovered that I am, “no spring chicken anymore,” according to grandpa. I need to have some kids QUICK- I am feeling much less fertile now.
Grandpa also passes this on, “Always be sure to do everything right.” Eureka! Ok. We need to find some tires…or an ice-cream shop that sells metal so I can fashion something with the new tool equipment.
Ok. I am tired. I am done talking with you. Goodnight amazing friends fam
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| Sums it up |
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