What I failed to mention in my last post, apparently, is that when Karen went to leave for work on Friday, the driver's front tire on the van was flat. We shifted all of the kids' Halloween costumes to the truck because it was already 7:20 and I really didn't want to deal with it. I actually wanted to go to work. I told Karen I would deal with it tomorrow.
Well, tomorrow (11/1) came and I went out to the garage around 7:30. We have had a flat tire on our Dodge Caravan van before. There's a plastic plug that lifts up and you use the tire thingie to turn this nut counterclockwise. That drops the tire to the ground, you fish a plastic thingie through the middle of the tire and you're set. Change the tire and move on.
Except that turning the nut counterclockwise only lowered the cable that the tire is threaded through but not the actual tire. I worked on it for 45 minutes. I reread the manual that came with the van. I looked at the tire again. I reread the manual. 45 minutes later, I just didn't get it.
I called our former neighbor Bill and asked him to come over. He did. He looked at it and tried to get the tire to lower. Wasn't happening. Bill says let's see if the tire will hold air. We concluded that the tire was flat because of a bad valve stem. So we put 36 pounds of air into the tire and it took air. I told Bill that if he was going to split wood, to call and I would come over and help him. Alex and I got in the van and drove to Sears. We noticed some smoke coming from the engine when we backed out.
Now, here's the funny unfunny part. I had my cell phone with me. It is set to vibrate. I have it in my pocket. We're standing in line and there's about 4 people ahead of us. We noticed that at the other desk, where no one is standing at, the phone rings. A guy shows up from the garage area and answers the phone. "No, there's no Dodge Caravan here." In hindsight, that makes sense. We had parked by the garages and you can't see that area from where this guy was standing. We thought about calling Karen but didn't because there are a lot of Dodge Caravans in the world.
Turns out, we should've.
About that time, I felt my phone vibrate. It was Karen. She had been trying to reach me on my cell because she was worried that the van's tire gave out while we were driving from North Liberty to Coralville. She had called Linder Tire, where we normally do a lot of our car business, and she had called Sears and no one knew where I was. Looking at my call history, she had tried me repeatedly - yet, I only felt my phone vibrate the time I answered it and it was in the exact same spot where I felt it - in my pocket.
Karen was on her way down to Sears because she thought I was in the ditch. Alex and I hopped in the truck and rode back to North Liberty. My wife wsa mad that I had not answered my cell. I tried to explain that it wasn't my fault but she really didn't want to hear about it.
So, anyways, we had pancakes, eggs, and ham for breakfast, did some laundry, and put away Halloween stuff while we waited for Sears to call. I ended up calling them ~11:30 and the van was done. It was a valve stem and the smoke came from some excess fluid burning off - nothing to worry about, they said.
So then, Bill calls and says that he is going to split wood.I told him we'd be there between 1:30 and 2:00. We left to get the van picked up and then Alex and I drove to Bill's - stopping at Casey's for a 1 liter of Pepsi for me and a A&W Root Beer for Alex - to help him split wood. We worked at Bill's until 3:30, which is when we left to take showers and get ready for 5:15 Mass. We were planning to leave @ 4:10. The women got home around 4 and we left ~4:15. Got to church, warmed up, and played Mass.
After Mass, we went to BK for supper. Then we went home, packed a cooler and went over to Bill's for a firepit. It was windy and cold so we didn't last long outside. We went inside and played Euchre. The men beat the women, 2 games to 1.
Then we came home, watched a little TV, and I went to bed.
What started out as a simple day - change a flat tire - turned into a complex series of events. It should have been
a) change the flat tire
b) drive to Sears on the spare
c) fix the tire, take off the spare and put it back
d) come home
It shouldn't have taken nearly as long as it did for everything to get done yesterday. Every thing turned out okay but it was kind of a rocky road.
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