The Day of the flat tire. I don’t know how many of you have had flat
tires, but today I have been initiated. This is no small thing. I am
sure that aside from excuses for arriving at meetings-work-dentists
appointments late it is a rare occurrence. Let me tell you about how it
works down here. Half the cars drive around with those ridiculous
little donut wheels (small spare tire). It’s almost an epidemic. The
other day I say a BMW (a nice one too) driving around with that silly
little wheel. If he had been in a car locker room the towel whipping
would have been fierce.
It’s all fun and games, however, until it happens to you which if
you live in Puerto Rico, it will. Maybe it has something to do with the
heat (perhaps the rubber is half melted anyway allowing anything from a
toothpick to a hard jolly rancher to penetrate your side wall), or the
fact that the streets seem to have an extraordinary quantity of pot
holes and debris. I don’t know. But today I came out to the parking lot
to find out that I had a flat. Aw man. I breathed a sigh of relief,
however, because thank God that it didn’t happen in rush hour traffic.
I whipped out the tiny silly diminutive God-awfully goofy little
spare tire and cranked up those silly little toy jacks that take a
million turns to go up half an inch, put the silly spare on and drove
gingerly (avoiding pot holes and debris) to Santurce, a working class
neighborhood (some would call it a tough neighborhood) and found a guy
who repaired tires… for, get this… $5. Yes, you heard right. $5.
Tire repair around here is such a booming business that they charge $5
a tire and work around the clock. Hell, maybe I should get out of the
computer racket and cash in on the booming flat business. So the guys
found the hole repaired the tire and slapped it back on in about 5
minutes..
…which is good, great wonderful, brilliant, but remember that $5 I
was talking about? I didn’t have it. I had $4.50. Now I couldn’t
exactly try to scam this guy out of fifty cents on an already
impossibly low fee. Wouldn’t you know it, they didn’t accept credit or
ATM. To further compound matters, I was in an area where there were no
ATMs. Oh, did I mention it was now 5 o’clock. Aw geez, now I have to
navigate down streets that when they were designed were intended to be
two way streets. Today, however, Puerto Rican’s have taken parking to
new levels as cars are stacked on either side in impossible
configurations making this already small two way street an even smaller
two way street. So it became the Samurai on the bridge all over again.
You gonna back up to the nearest cross street or am I? I think not
knave. I have to find an ATM. You will suffer should you wish to
challenge me. It worked, he backed off and up he went to the nearest
cross street. I gave a little wave of thanks and made my way into the
heart of a six pack a day smoker, potato chip snarffing, egg guzzling,
red meat devouring, whole milk drinking, 500 hundred pound overweight
50 year old. CLOGGED is the word that kept rearing it’s ugly head as I
banged on my steering wheel and cursed the accursed traffic and the pot
hole ridden tiny streets. After about an hour, I spied it, an oasis of
money. A-ha, doh!, I’m on the wrong side of the street. Quick stop in a
gas station-run across the street on a pedestrian cross walk that only
half remained-narrowly missed by cars honking at this brazen fool who
stepped out of his car for even a millisecond-lunging for the security
of electronic cash, information age technology that would save my ass,
give me my cash and allow me to get on with my life.
So the deed it done, now I have to get back to the tire shop. To
relive the feeling, reread the above paragraph. Now I arrive back to
the shop and it’s closed. Ah, there he is. I breathe a sigh of relief,
and notice the humble tire change guy hanging out at the bar next door.
Here’s your money, I say, and thanks for your patience. Whew. The day
is done, the tire is repaired, I can go home complete, satisfied, whole
again.
I’ll worry about putting that jigsaw puzzle called the jack, lug
wrench, wing nut, spare tire assembly sometime next month. For now
it’ll just kick around in the trunk. Hey, maybe I’ll need it again
really soon.