What A Day

So today has been a....day. 

I should have known it would be a day just from the fact that I had trouble sleeping last night from yet another...not quite nightmare but not a good dream. 

But I figured it would be a rather mellow day otherwise. 

I only had one errand in mind.

To go grocery shopping in the morning and hopefully avoid any crazy crowds of people. 

However.

That plan got derailed, when a pick up truck, pulling a trailer, pulled up right next to me as I was taking the on ramp and began honking their horn at me. 

I figured they were just wanting to get past because they were in a hurry, and so I slowed down to let them have the right of way.

The pick up truck slowed down with me.

Still honking it's horn.

So I finally looked over and saw the driver signaling to me, making a sign that I recognized as them indicating that I had something wrong with a tire. That it may be flat.

Which was odd as I didn't feel anything wrong with my car as I was driving.

But I obligingly pulled over -which is hard on the curve of the entrance to the freeway.- and put on my hazards and cautiously got out of my car to see what was going on.

And sure enough, my back left tire...was not looking good.

It wasn't flat flat.

But it definitely wasn't holding it's proper tire shape. It liked like a slightly squished donut on the bottom.

Yet I'm guessing it probably looked bad enough if another driver was willing to get my attention to point it out. 

And if it was bad enough that the driver was working to get my attention before I got onto the freeway proper and reached freeway speeds...that it probably wasn't safe to actually get on the freeway at freeway speeds.

As it probably would have caused my tire to blow out or something. 

But that left me in a bit of a pickle because I was literally on the on ramp. 

I couldn't really just make a right hand turn and get back off. 

Unless I turned my car around or reversed or something...and that would risk me running into another car. 

So. 

I made the cautious decision to keep driving.

I kept my hazard lights on and kept to speed limits below 35 and stayed in the 'emergency' lane. 

-Not sure if it's called the emergency lane, but I stayed in that little section of freeway between the barrier and the solid white line.

As the next exit was only a mile away. So I stayed in the emergency lane for that nerve wracking mile until I could take that exit.

I was thinking about pulling off to the side there to better investigate the tire...but like...what was I gonna do? Try and replace the tire by myself? Ha. 

I figured it would be best to try and get to a tire store or a mechanic and have them look at my tire.

And if the tire was fine on slower speeds...that I would hopefully make it the couple of miles I needed to get to get to the tire store.

Thankfully, I found a closer location than expected as I remembered that Big O Tires had moved from it's old location to a new location...and that spot was right near where I was driving.

And I made it to their parking lot without further incident so woot!!

So I pull in and get out of my car and a gentleman was like "What's up?"

And I was like "There's something wrong with my tire, I was signaled as I was getting on the freeway that it was looking wrong and look" I point to the tire. "It has an issue." 

Thankfully it wasn't too long of a wait. Around half an hour for them to get to my car in the queue of cars and figure out what was going on with my tire.

Apparently a small piece of metal had punctured it. 

And the guys at Big O Tires were able to get it out and patch my tire so that it was good as new.

Surprisingly though...they didn't charge me for this service.

Maybe it fell under a warranty or something? As I think I got my tires from them last time I got my tires? 

Not sure. The dude was just like "Here's your keys. Here's what is wrong and how we fixed it. You're good to go." 

For which I was grateful.

Like I was prepared to pay for a new tire if needed.

But I'm happy that they just needed to patch it.

Though I'm probably going to be paranoid about said tire for a week or so to make sure that it doesn't end up flat again. 

Of course...

I end up getting home from that experience (and after getting food cus of course I still went grocery shopping) in time to see the coup happening over in DC.

*exhales*

It's just...it's similar to experiencing 9/11 again.

Like you're just glued to the news. Doomscrolling through social media, looking for updates, watching the violence and chaos unfold, and just...at a loss at how this could happen to your country. How people could think that doing such an act would be alright.

It's been an emotionally exhausting day. And my heart hurts for everything that happened. It's also angered. Fearful. Annoyed. Depressed. 

There's all the feelings about what I've seen, what I've heard. 

It's a day for the history books for sure. And only time will tell how the events of today will effect how we move forward from here.

I just hope that things move forward in a more positive light, and that the events of today aren't a sign of what people might attempt on the 20th. 

We'll have to see.

But it's been a day.

Quite a day.

Until you next find these words;
I'll be watching the leaves.
Enjoy the day!

-Sarnic Dirchi