[Shadow248]

Here's a story for everyone...

Last saturday, December 8th, was Mandi's birthday. For those of you who don't already know, Mandi is my girlfriend. Let's take a look at how her day went...

FRIDAY night we decided to go out to dinner, because we were planning to attend a christmas party on saturday and would be eating dinner there. She wants to drive, so we both climb in the X and start out down the road. About 100 feet down the road, we feel strange vibration that feels like it is coming from the rear end of the car. It goes away quickly and things return to normal. Five miles further down the road at 55mph we feel the vibration again, this time it stays and turns into a minor "hopping" which turns into a major hopping. Alarmed, she slows down...at this point the vibration is so violent the dashboard is rattling and my speech is affected. Before she can get the car to a stop, we hear a slam, the rear end drops slightly and the distinct sound of a rim scraping the ground is heard loudly. Flat tire. I get out to discover that BLOWN TIRE is a better discription, for there are tire pieces all over the road. So being the man, i instinctively proceed to the trunk where i find a spare, jack and small pouch - inside which are two flat hinged devices for which there appears to be no useful function. I got the alien jack figured out and jacked the car up. Then i bring the spare around, and go to remove the now bare rim. Wait a minute, i am missing something here...NO LUG WRENCH. AWESOME. Looked all over, couldn't find one. So i call my dad, and ask him if he can bring one...he does. We wait. On arrival he states "I would have been here sooner but i backed into your G*DD*MN car!" AWESOME. So now thinking about my precious GTP's health, i attempt to continue this tire change. My dad was smart enough to bring light, because this is of course on the darkest of all country roads. I then discovered that the standard lug wrench which im sure they equip this car with would have been no help, for it seems that an alien force unknown to the planet must have put these lugnuts on. Me and my father pulling together on an industrial size lug wrench cannot budge these things. It finally took the combination of me pulling and my dad striking the wrench with a 6-cell maglite to break one loose. After repeating this process on all five nuts, we get the rim off, and replace it with the spare. All is good and we drive back home, still hungry with no food. It turns out that my dad was able to stop in time before hitting my car and only scuffed the bumper slightly...PHEW. so we go out with my car and all is good.

SATURDAY i awaken to a beautiful day...cold, rainy and i have a bit of a cold. AWESOME. I made the mistake of telling Mandi i would take care of locating a replacement Dunlop SP 8000 tire for her (at this point most of you are thinking BIG MISTAKE, yeah i found that out). Apparently these are only special order tires and the soonest i could score one would be tuesday, which would not help us at all. So not knowing what to do, i went out and did the shopping i needed to do (flowers, card, etc.). As i am running around, my dad calls and tells me that he managed to locate a USED tire...same tire? NO...same brand? NO...well is it the same size? YES. ok where is it. Downtown Easton (the ghetto). So i cruise to the ghetto in my black GTP donning my Leather jacket...luckily the rain had stopped. I entered the place to find lots of tires...good sign. Proceeded to ask the man at the desk about the alleged tire...only to be answered with "what you say. main?" (heavy spanish accent). After figuring out what i was saying, he dissapeared into the tire racks...about 25 mins later he returns with the tire in question. As it turns out the tire is in good shape, and a good price ($40) so i buy it...but they won't mount it cause they are closing. AWESOME. Off to STS. $17 bucks later, tire is mounted and balanced. Now it is pouring rain and my driveway is pretty flooded, so the X has to sit for awhile before i can put the tire on. But to finish the rest of the story, we did get to the party and i managed to snag one of our garages to put the tire on, and now all is good, for awhile. But keep in mind this was mandi's birthday, and her day wasn't any better than mine. She did like the flowers though.

End of story.