Flat tire....."I can make it to Costco!"......

After doing my "good deed for the day" by taking my sister to the rental car agency (her car's in the shop) I pulled in the driveway and hear a sound that I thought was my neighbors sprinklers. "psssshhhhhh"
I went inside when my sister follows me in and says "Michelle, you ran over a nail, your tire is leaking bad!" I went outside to check, she was right. She stayed home with my kids and I booked it down to Costco to get my tire fixed hoping to beat the leaking air from my tire.

I made it 1/2 way there behind 1 slow car and a construction worker with a "STOP" sign and realized I wasn't going to make it before I was driving on rims. So I pulled into an Elementary school parking lot and called my husband.

"Hey, you need to come help me, I have a flat tire." "Are you serious?" See, he just got back to work because we had lunch together an hour before I took my sister to the rental place. So after I tell him where I'm at, I decide that I can at least jack the car up for him. (please, it's the least I could do) ha ha

• I get the jack out and I'm surprised at how easy it is to work. Pretty straight forward. So I jack the car up.
• I think "okay, these Lug-nuts are going to be crazy hard to get off..." then I realize the handle for the jack looks an awful lot like it fits the lug-nuts. I try it.....it does.
• Thinking this is my stopping point, "there's no way I can get these off" I easily get all 5 off and realize changing a tire is a piece of cake and call off the reinforcements.
• Reinforcement doesn't pick up his phone
• I swap the damaged tire with the horseshoe sized piece of metal sticking out of it with the spare. And call off reinforcements again, twice. No one answers.
  
• In the process of tightening the lug-nuts on the spare, in comes the reinforcement...a little annoyed that he had to come and I was done. (hee hee)
• There was a small victory celebration in the parking lot by me, and a "tip of the hat" from my husband. I was (and still am) proud I did it all by myself....can you tell? ☺

And for an even happier ending to the story, it turns out the tire that was punctured was the same tire we purchased from Costco not too long ago. Apparently they have a "Pro Rated Warrenty" standard on all their tires. I was pro-rated $97 on the $108 tire that I had to replace (yes, I had to REPLACE the hole was that big and too near the edge to patch) so after taxes I paid $12 for a new tire. woot woot!


I went over some railroad tracks in a remote area of town today, I think that's where I picked up my sharp little friend.

So moral of the story is "You can do it!"