Tires and Tribulations

Today did not begin as I thought it might. Typically, I time my short commute to leave just in time to get into work and sit down at my desk right at 8 a.m., give or take a minute or two depending on traffic. However, some unseen events of the evening before resulted in my being two and a half hours late to work. As I started driving away from my usual parking space, I noticed the distinctive rumble and thumping associated with a flat tire. I immediately pulled over into the closest parking space to check on the tire I suspected had let me down and found it had did so in one of the worst ways possible.

I went upstairs to ask Frema, who had not left yet for the day, if she could drop me off on her own way to work. She said she would just work from home for the day and it was fine if I just wanted to take her vehicle. I kissed her good-bye for the second time that morning and made a new attempt at getting to the office. This time I made it a little bit out of the apartment complex parking lot before I started hearing that distinctive thumping sound again. I thought to myself that it couldn't be another flat on this car, too, but before going any further, I decided it would be best to check it out. I pulled over to a side road, got out to inspect the tires, and saw that Frema's rear driver-side tire was pretty low. I was hoping I'd just be able to throw the spare on and go about the day, planning to later fill the tire up at the gas station. But once I got the tire off to put on the spare, I noticed that a nail had worked its way all the way through the treads and shredded the area around itself. There was no way the tire was going to hold air if we tried to just put air in it and make our weekend plans of traveling north. Thus, after getting the spare on, a task that had me thinking of the opening sequence of The Incredible Hulk and David Banner's frustration with the task angered him to the point of transformation, we made an appointment at the local Tire Hut to have it replaced.

My boss was very understanding, noting that these kind of things happen to everyone at some point, so I didn't get in any trouble for being so late. But it still seems odd that both of our vehicles would have flats at the same time. I am left to wonder if someone in the building has a vendetta against us, but I can't imagine what we did to anyone here that would anger them to the point of revenge. For one thing, we're pretty quiet and don't bother anyone, but people don't usually stay long enough to really get a feud going. The summer and first part of fall had about half the apartments in the building filled with tenants on short-term leases for some company's project. They all moved out last month and all but one of the apartments are still empty. I suppose the flats were likely an unfortunate coincidence, but I suppose I should be watching my back for the remainder of our lease. Just in case.