My Car Adventure

The other night, as I was leaving a prayer meeting over in the Bellevue area, I noticed that one of the tires on my car was starting to look a little more flat than the other three. Now, picture the scene: it's 10:30 at night, dark and drizzling. And, as I looked at the pathetic tire, I felt despair coming over me. Now, the tire wasn't that flat -- just a little. But, for a girl who considers re-filling the windshield washer fluid container as the extent in her expertise of "fixing" a car, things were bad. Now, not as bad, mind you, as when I drove around St. Petersburg in a lada that felt like cardboard taped together. And, I've had some fun car adventures with my precious friend, Bet, in the car we affectionately named "Poncho" and drove around in upstate New York last summer... Poncho, I'm afraid, has since kicked the bucket. But this situation the other night was different. I was by myself. And, I still needed to get over the 520 bridge. Thankfully my dear friends, Andy and Christine, were willing to go with me to the local 76 station to solve the problem. (Andy is a structural engineer building architecturally sound buildings in downtown Seattle... so putting a little air in a tire -- no problem!). But, I must say that the look on people's faces when I retell the story now is priceless: "you do not know how to put air in your tire? Are you that dumb???" Well, you know... bike tires are no problem. But, car tires?! Now that is a different story all together. You see, my great fear has always been that I would put too much air in the tire and blow the whole thing up -- leaving me with not just a flat tire, but no tire at all! But, now.... should the need to put air into my tire ever rise again, I now know what to do! So, the whole reason for this little post is to say, "kudos to the fellow who came up with the idea of putting a gauge on the little air thingie so you know how much pressure is in the tire without blowing it up!"