a flat.

Exercising my writing muscles here with a simple account of yesterday. …

Nashville is having what feels like its 427th day of rain this winter. So. many. gray. days.

Two days ago, the light on my dashboard indicated low air pressure in my rear left tire. Yesterday morning, I planned to take care of it on my way to work. It was pouring rain.

I pulled into the gas station at the entrance of our neighborhood. Use of the air compressor was $1 – quarters only. I dug through the change in my cupholder but only came up with 75 cents. No problem, I thought. There's a Kroger just up the road. I pulled into Kroger and paid the $1.25 with my card and tried holding Elijah's Spiderman umbrella (which I found in the backseat) between my head and shoulder as I used two hands to hold the hose to the tire. There was a lot of air blowing back on me and absolutely no pressure registering on the manual gauge connected to the hose. It could have been user error, but I've inflated enough tires in my life to conclude their hose was broken.

I got back in the car and headed west to the gas station at Nipper's Corner. The air compressor was next to a parking spot at the McDonald's but as soon as I pulled in, I could see paper covering the credit card device. I couldn't make out what it said, but it surely didn't say "This device is working properly," so I backed out and went down the road.

At Old Hickory and I-65, in Brentwood, there are three gas stations in close proximity. I pulled into one off Franklin Pike and swiped my card, but the screen that usually shows "Processing … Approved…" was only showing black boxes. I gave up after a couple swipes and went around the corner. Finally, the machine worked.

Four minutes for $1.50. The gauge was digital and the air was supposed to automatically shut off at 32 psi. Perfect. I knelt next to my tire, pulling up the hood on my rain jacket and held the hose at just the right position so I wasn't feeling or hearing air escaping. I had to hold it tightly and twist my head around to read the gauge on the machine. It was registering something like 5psi, then 12 … 10 … 12 … 15 … 10 …15, 20, 21, 22, … 20 … finally, 24 and then my four minutes was up. By this time—five gas stations later—I was running late to work so I figured 24 was good enough and resolved to stop at Discount Tire on my way home. (If your tire just needs inflated, they'll do that for free.)

Fast-forward to 3:30pm. Still raining. I pulled into the Discount Tire about a mile from our neighborhood and one of the guys checked my tire. It was not registering much pressure so he said there was likely something in it; they'd take a look at it, but the wait was 90 minutes. I called Nate, who loaded up the kids and came to get me. We cleaned up the house before MC (missional community group) and at 5pm Discount Tire called. There was a nail in my tire, and it was too close to the edge to just repair the tire. I'd need a new one. The cheapest option was $112.

I agreed and since our friends we were expecting for MC were running late, I hopped into Nate's car to get the key to my car before Discount Tire closed at 6pm. (By the way, Nate's car is a manual and I learned last summer how to drive it. It was a rough start but I'm pretty awesome at driving a stick now and proud of myself for learning this skill.) They pulled my car right up to the curb, so I ended up driving my car home and leaving Nate's car parked there.

Our MC has dinner together before diving into deeper things. They surprised me with a birthday cake and an honor time, which was really sweet and encouraging. After MC, I got a ride back to Discount Tire and drove Nate's car home. Nate offered to go get it, but I said he could run bedtime instead.


Update: It turns out a couple dozen of my coworkers also experienced flat tires. There's a construction site (new condos going up) next to our headquarters and we all had drywall screws in our tires. Facilities reached out to the contractor and after I sent my tire bill to them, they fully reimbursed me.