insane in the membrane

Yesterday was insane.

I'm not talking about the good funny ha-ha kind of insane where your friend randomly goes and gets a tattoo and you yell, "You're INSANE!"

Nope. We're talking the rubber wallpaper, should be committed and taken away from decent society kind of insane.

I went to work like normal, and, on my way to work, I heard a noise like I had hit a rock and it had bounced off the undercarriage of the car. I tensed up for a minute, but nothing seemed to be wrong. I continued driving to work.

When I got to work, my friend Rebecca told me that it was her last day. She turned in her resignation on Monday and her boss apparently said, why don't you just take the rest of the week off. So, we quick like a bunny organized a going away type lunch for her at Wahoo's Fish Tacos. I offered to drive my coworker.

At the appointed time, we helped Rebecca carry some boxes down to her car and then went around to my car where I discovered that I had a VERY flat tire. So, I rode to lunch in coworker's car, came back, and he and I attempted to use my can of fix-a-flat to reinflate the tire enough so that I could drive to a Firestone.

(Some of you may remember that I had a terrible blow-out flat tire on the freeway several months back. I never got that tire replaced and have been riding around on my full-sized spare. The spare wasn't the one that went flat, by the way.)

No dice with the foam. In fact, it started SQUIRTING OUT OF THE HOLE that we didn't know was there. Right. Not bueno.

To top this all off, I found out right before lunch that there was somewhere I had to be at 5:00 and had arranged to leave work early. Now, I wasn't going ANYWHERE.

Called Brandon and arranged for him to come pick me up at 4:00. Also called security and made sure that they wouldn't tow my car if we had to leave it here overnight before we could get a new tire.

Brandon took me home, I changed clothes and went to my thing at 5:00, he picked me up with a brand new tire in his trunk and we headed back to the car in Mission Viejo.

On arriving, we discovered that I had left my keys in my other pants. At home. In Santa Ana.

D'OH!

(This is the part where Brandon deserves a medal for not leaving me in the parking lot in Mission Viejo to fend for myself.)

Went home. Had some dinner. Changed clothes. Went back to Mission Viejo, KEYS IN HAND.

Brandon made ME change the tire. I know he was trying to make sure I could do it and all, but yuck. When there are bigger, stronger, more able people around than me, I'd just as soon let them do it thankyouverymuch. Also, I had changed my own tire before. I did survive quite well for 21 years before I met him, as I very kindly pointed out. He very kindly pointed out that if I wanted to survive the night I'd humor him (not really!).

Thus ends the tire saga. It was ten o'clock before we got home.

I'm buying three more new tires this weekend and getting my oil changed and, undoubtedly, enduring another lecture on preventive car maintenance.

=)