When the Air Goes Out of Your Tires

Yesterday was one of those days. Work was long and stressful, and, with about an hour to go, I got the following text from Aimee, one of my co-workers:  “Hey, your passenger side rear tire looks really low.” “Aaagghhhh…..” I texted back.  “But looks drivable!” she rejoined, optimistically.  Not when I got there.  I stared at the thing, blankly, with not an ounce of intellectual energy to try to solve the problem.  All I wanted to do was go home.  I got a lot of advice and encouragement: “Let me call my husband, and….”; “There’s a tire place off Cesar Chavez”; “How about it I drive you to…”.  No. All of those things required a plan, and all I wanted to do was go home.  I left the car in the parking lot, bummed a ride with a co-worker and pulled a Scarlett O’Hara.  I’ll think about that tomorrow.

Needless to say, Thursday became my day off.  I went to bed at 7:00 pm, and slept a straight 10 hours, til 5:00.  Unheard of for me, but boy, did I need that deep and uninterrupted sleep. 

So my plan for today was to walk Banks just over two miles, and follow that up by walking to work (2.8 miles).  But I had more time and energy than I had in a while, so almost immediately, I decided to do the whole five.  (Unfortunately, I’d worn my lightweight Tom’s-like slip-ons in anticipation of a shorter walk, but they did fine).  We did St. Ed’s again, but with a twist:  instead of meandering through the campus aimlessly, we did the outer perimeter, with the mantra, Take a right wherever you see daylight.  In a couple of spots, where we reached the very edge of the campus, we even took a detour through a few blocks in the surrounding neighborhoods, which ate up a good bit of time. 

 We got home with eight minutes left on the clock (which I easily made up by walking that long down South Congress before hailing a bus to work).  The morning was quite warm and muggy, and by the time we got home, I was dripping wet; it’d been a long time since that had happened, and I love jumping into a hot shower in that condition. 

With my walk, and a good night’s sleep behind me, I’m ready to tackle the flat tire thing.  I trust I'll come up with something.

                                    A deflating sight.