July got off to a bang for me.  I went in to work for a few hours in the morning.  On the way in the weather report on the radio proclaimed a “very slight” chance of rain this afternoon.  Big surprise given the recent weather.

Upon leaving the office I was driving down the interstate when a driver in front of me suddenly swerved to avoid a small piece of metal in the road.  I was not so fortunate.  I heard the object clank against the side of my van*, but I assumed all was well.  I turned off of the interstate onto Memorial Parkway and soon felt a strong vibration, which caused me to quickly pull off to the shoulder.  The rear passenger tire was toast; there was a huge gash in the sidewall.

I typically keep my floor jack in my vehicle (I hate using the little standard jacks), but we took it out to make room for luggage, kids, and dogs for a recent trip and it never made it back in.  So I called the wife and asked her to bring me the jack.  As she was nearing I started to see a few rain drops.  By the time she stopped the sparse drops had become a torrent.  I grabbed the jack and waited in the van for about 20 minutes for the rain to ease.

A window of opportunity came and I quickly changed the tire as cars whizzed past at 50+ mph kicking up a constant wave of mist onto me.  When I dropped the corner of the vehicle down the sagging spare tire did not foster much encouragement.  I had little choice but to gingerly drive the two or three miles to where my wife was working (she tutors a few hours a week).  I would later learn that the spare tire, which is supposed to be pressurized up to 60 psi, was sitting at just under 10 psi.

I took charge of the kids and loaded up in my wife’s van that we purchased new earlier this year and headed up to Costco to get a new tire.  I, of course, left my wallet in my van that stayed with my wife, but I don’t realize this until after I’ve unloaded all the kids and taken the destroyed tire into the service center.  By this time the rain huge friggin downpour had started back up, so we had to wait about half an hour before I dared lug all three kids through the parking lot to the van.

When it became clear that the rain was not going to subside all that much we just went for it.  Fortunately no one melted.  We drove home to pick up some things before meeting my wife at her work (remember she has the non-drivable van and I have her nearly new van).  On the way home we pass by two wrecks on the Parkway.  It doesn’t rain for most of the year and people just forget that you have to slow down on pavement with standing water.

After leaving the house I was approaching the intersection with the Parkway and noticed that the traffic lights were blinking.  No big deal, right?  An officer pulled up to block my lane just as I was almost to the intersection.  He instructed us to turn right even though all were planning to go left.  I dutifully turned to the right and was checking traffic before pulling out when we were rear ended - right in front of the officer.  I got out and attempted to sarcasticly say, “I guess I don’t have to call the police.”  Fortunately there was no damage, but while the officer was filling out the accident report there was a two or three car T-bone accident in the same intersection.  Oh, and the driver who hit me - I believe the officer cited him for not having insurance.  Very fortunate that there was no damage.

Other than that it was a pretty uneventful day.

By the way, the storm lasted for the better part of two hours and was very intense for most of that time.  It was just yesterday that Governor Riley proclaimed the “Days of Prayer for Rain” in Alabama.  Coincidence?  I report, you decide.

* Hey, we’ve got three kids and two labs. 

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This entry was posted by Brian on Sunday, July 1st, 2007 at 8:21 pm and is filed under Rants. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. Please note the copyright policy.