Jericho: Blow-Outs
Today started off very well. I woke up around 10. I'm not used to sleeping nearly that late any more - even on weekends. But, I guess I needed the sleep and I felt pretty good.
I walked out of the bedroom to the sounds of people lifting boxes and toting bales. We've had a roommate for about six months and today Steph was helping him move out. I was hoping they would be quick and that I would get to spend the day alone playing WoW. This was just a dream and I knew it. I knew that I would get sucked into helping.
Sure enough, I was lifting and toting in no time. Sigh! Oh well. If I helped it would be over sooner, right? I didn't even bother with eating, this will be quick - right???
Steph and the roommate rented a truck. We put his junk in the truck. It barely filled the thing. Apparently, when Steph went to pick up the truck, their computers were down, so they gave her a much larger truck than had been reserved. This would have been great - except the roommate didn't need the extra space. We could have held a rock concert in the back of this truck and still had room for his stuff!
I got in the truck with Steph, we were heading off to drop the roommate's stuff at a storage place. About ten miles down the road, something smacked into the driver-side window. No broken glass, no foul - we drove on.
A few minutes later, the lady in the car next to us was pantomiming her heart out. Apparently, we had blown out a tire! The ride in the truck was so rough, we hadn't noticed we were grinding the tire into bits. When we slowed down, we could definitely tell. Whoops!
While Steph was calling the rental company's roadside assistance, I got out and snapped the picture. The tire was pretty gone. My bet is that a piece of the tire, or whatever destroyed the tire, was what popped up and hit the driver's side window. Steph waited on hold forever. Finally she got through. The lady told her she needed to make some calls and would call Steph back. We called the roommate, he was on his way to sign the paperwork at the storage place. Fifteen or so minutes passed, the lady called us back and said we needed to call a local place to get someone to come to us. Great. Steph made the call, they answered right away and said the guy who would fix the tire was on his way. It could be a while, since it was a Sunday. Super!
Steph calls the roommate and tells him that we are going to be waiting a while. Could he bring us back a bag of burgers after he is done with the paperwork? He agreed. All that was left was for us to sit and wait. It might be an hour, it might be an hour and a half - no one was sure. We sat and talked and talked and sat. At one point, Steph reaches into her shirt, and then nearly pops herself in the face with her own hand. I look over at her, wondering if the boredom was getting to her. A look of shock and unbelieving consumes her face as she struggled with something under her shirt. I asked what was wrong and she shows me the contents of her hand - a broken zipper, the one in the picture. (Okay, that zipper isn't just broken, it's destroyed!) You see, Steph was wearing a sports bra. I've seen her do this a thousand times; she'll tug on the zipper because it's started to come open. Only this time, the zipper self destructed and rendered her front closure bra useless. We had a good chuckle as she tried to figure out how to keep her boobs in her Blunder Bra. Finally, she called the roommate and told him to forget the burgers, come pick her up so she could go buy a new bra!
The roommate showed up and Steph and he left me to wait for the guy. I waited a while longer, wondering what the hell could go wrong with our day next? What other misadventures might await? I also wondered if I was going to end up as a statistic - a gruesome piece on local news. You see, we parked in the weird shoulder between the highway and an off ramp, apparently, this is called a gore point (Is that not a lovely term or what? So glad I didn't know this fact while I was sitting there!) People were whipping past us at 60+ MPH, shaking the truck. But, worse, people kept diving into the off ramp, nearly missing the truck. A few had the audacity to HONK at the truck - as if it was our fault that they decided it was better to risk their lives with a stupid stunt than to drive on and come back and perform the maneuver safely. And people look at me funny when I say that drivers should be tested regularly and that we should work to remove humans from controlling vehicles. Sheesh!
The guy showed up a little later. The guy's name was Dale. And, my friends, Dale was a bad ass! He got the tire off in record time - he was totally true to the NASCAR baseball cap he was wearing. Then, he went to work on the tire, removing it from the hub. I've seen this done in service shops with a big device that spins the tire around - but not Dale! No, he went to town with a pick-axe that looked more like a mining or farming implement. Four over-head swings and the tire and hub are separate components. The new tire was fit on top of the hub and Dale attacked it with the two bars pictured - it snapped over the hub with practiced ease. Dale had the tire back on the truck, aired up and paperwork done in about ten minutes. All I could do was tip him and wave to him as he drove into the sunset. High Ho, Silver!
Steph and the roommate showed back up. It was about 1 PM by this point. We decided to get the truck unloaded then get food. Probably not a smart move for two diabetics, but we were all pretty frustrated.
We got to the storage place and began unloading. After the first load, I was on the elevator back down to the truck with the roommate. You see, I hadn't had my, um, daily constitutional, yet. Max can attest to my power to produce gas - but when I was around him, they were loud and sloppy sounding but with little smell since they were the result of CO2 from WAY too much soda. However, I passed gas in the elevator and it was one of the most disgusting things I've ever produced! It made the roommate nearly gag. The extra time in my system had had a serious effect! Needless to say (as most of this paragraph is) I immediately made use of the storage place's hygienic facilities.
Lunch was had and our day's misadventures were mostly at an end. I am left to wonder ... who is Dale saving now?
I walked out of the bedroom to the sounds of people lifting boxes and toting bales. We've had a roommate for about six months and today Steph was helping him move out. I was hoping they would be quick and that I would get to spend the day alone playing WoW. This was just a dream and I knew it. I knew that I would get sucked into helping.
Sure enough, I was lifting and toting in no time. Sigh! Oh well. If I helped it would be over sooner, right? I didn't even bother with eating, this will be quick - right???
Steph and the roommate rented a truck. We put his junk in the truck. It barely filled the thing. Apparently, when Steph went to pick up the truck, their computers were down, so they gave her a much larger truck than had been reserved. This would have been great - except the roommate didn't need the extra space. We could have held a rock concert in the back of this truck and still had room for his stuff!
I got in the truck with Steph, we were heading off to drop the roommate's stuff at a storage place. About ten miles down the road, something smacked into the driver-side window. No broken glass, no foul - we drove on.
A few minutes later, the lady in the car next to us was pantomiming her heart out. Apparently, we had blown out a tire! The ride in the truck was so rough, we hadn't noticed we were grinding the tire into bits. When we slowed down, we could definitely tell. Whoops!
While Steph was calling the rental company's roadside assistance, I got out and snapped the picture. The tire was pretty gone. My bet is that a piece of the tire, or whatever destroyed the tire, was what popped up and hit the driver's side window. Steph waited on hold forever. Finally she got through. The lady told her she needed to make some calls and would call Steph back. We called the roommate, he was on his way to sign the paperwork at the storage place. Fifteen or so minutes passed, the lady called us back and said we needed to call a local place to get someone to come to us. Great. Steph made the call, they answered right away and said the guy who would fix the tire was on his way. It could be a while, since it was a Sunday. Super!
Steph calls the roommate and tells him that we are going to be waiting a while. Could he bring us back a bag of burgers after he is done with the paperwork? He agreed. All that was left was for us to sit and wait. It might be an hour, it might be an hour and a half - no one was sure. We sat and talked and talked and sat. At one point, Steph reaches into her shirt, and then nearly pops herself in the face with her own hand. I look over at her, wondering if the boredom was getting to her. A look of shock and unbelieving consumes her face as she struggled with something under her shirt. I asked what was wrong and she shows me the contents of her hand - a broken zipper, the one in the picture. (Okay, that zipper isn't just broken, it's destroyed!) You see, Steph was wearing a sports bra. I've seen her do this a thousand times; she'll tug on the zipper because it's started to come open. Only this time, the zipper self destructed and rendered her front closure bra useless. We had a good chuckle as she tried to figure out how to keep her boobs in her Blunder Bra. Finally, she called the roommate and told him to forget the burgers, come pick her up so she could go buy a new bra!
The roommate showed up and Steph and he left me to wait for the guy. I waited a while longer, wondering what the hell could go wrong with our day next? What other misadventures might await? I also wondered if I was going to end up as a statistic - a gruesome piece on local news. You see, we parked in the weird shoulder between the highway and an off ramp, apparently, this is called a gore point (Is that not a lovely term or what? So glad I didn't know this fact while I was sitting there!) People were whipping past us at 60+ MPH, shaking the truck. But, worse, people kept diving into the off ramp, nearly missing the truck. A few had the audacity to HONK at the truck - as if it was our fault that they decided it was better to risk their lives with a stupid stunt than to drive on and come back and perform the maneuver safely. And people look at me funny when I say that drivers should be tested regularly and that we should work to remove humans from controlling vehicles. Sheesh!
The guy showed up a little later. The guy's name was Dale. And, my friends, Dale was a bad ass! He got the tire off in record time - he was totally true to the NASCAR baseball cap he was wearing. Then, he went to work on the tire, removing it from the hub. I've seen this done in service shops with a big device that spins the tire around - but not Dale! No, he went to town with a pick-axe that looked more like a mining or farming implement. Four over-head swings and the tire and hub are separate components. The new tire was fit on top of the hub and Dale attacked it with the two bars pictured - it snapped over the hub with practiced ease. Dale had the tire back on the truck, aired up and paperwork done in about ten minutes. All I could do was tip him and wave to him as he drove into the sunset. High Ho, Silver!
Steph and the roommate showed back up. It was about 1 PM by this point. We decided to get the truck unloaded then get food. Probably not a smart move for two diabetics, but we were all pretty frustrated.
We got to the storage place and began unloading. After the first load, I was on the elevator back down to the truck with the roommate. You see, I hadn't had my, um, daily constitutional, yet. Max can attest to my power to produce gas - but when I was around him, they were loud and sloppy sounding but with little smell since they were the result of CO2 from WAY too much soda. However, I passed gas in the elevator and it was one of the most disgusting things I've ever produced! It made the roommate nearly gag. The extra time in my system had had a serious effect! Needless to say (as most of this paragraph is) I immediately made use of the storage place's hygienic facilities.
Lunch was had and our day's misadventures were mostly at an end. I am left to wonder ... who is Dale saving now?
posted by Jericho Brown at 3/22/2009 06:39:00 PM
2 Comments:
I heard Steph's version of the story, which does not include Dale. Therefore, Jericho - your tale is much more exciting! :)
Thanks soooo much for my laugh of the day. It's only 10:35 AM and I'll smile the rest of the day as I number crunch my way to home, food and bed, whenever that may be.
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